Site News  |   Monitor Keywords  |   Monitor Archive  |   Organizer  |   Account Info  |

System to provide specific messages to patients

This application, attorney docket reference PIP158BANFU-US, claims priority to provisional application 60/685,491 filed May 31, 2005, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.

1. Field of the Invention

The invention relates to providing specific advisory messages to patients/consumers in a store, pharmacy or other location.

2. Discussion of the Background

U.S. Pat. No. 6,067,524 to Byerly et al. discloses a method and system for generating advisory messages to pharmacy patients. The teachings of U.S. Pat. No. 6,067,524 are incorporated herein by reference.

We refer to a Computer System with the acronym CS.

Certain terms used in this application are defined below. In some cases, examples are provided to clarify the definition.

A consumer, in this application, is synonymous with a patient, or a purchaser of a drug, or one who is prescribed a drug, or one who takes a drug, or one who fills a prescription for a drug or a user of a drug; all of these terms are synonymous with each other.

PID is an acronym for Patient Identification. PID in this application refers to any unique set of symbols that identifies a particular patient. PID is an acronym for “Patient ID.” A PID may, for example, be comprised of a sequence of numbers and letters.

POS is an acronym for Point Of Sale. A POS is the area where a consumer engages in transactions at a retail store.

A POS terminal, in this application, means a point of sale terminal, which is an input output device for communicating consumer transaction information between a consumer and a retail store to a CS associated with the retail store.

A POS CS, in this application, means a CS for logging POS transaction data, including any peripheral and input and output devices connected to it, such as POS terminals, optical scanners, printers, etc.

All databases herein may be formatted as one or more files, xml documents, relational database files, and may include tables, forms, queries, relations, reports, modules, and other objects useful in database management and programming. All computers herein may include a digital central processing unit, RAM memory, disk drives, operating system software, and conventional hardware and software to implement, for example, database management and networking.

A product code, in this application, is a code associated with a product. For example, a product code may be a code assigned by a company, a store, or by an industry standard, to a product.

A prescription, in this application, means an order for the preparation and administration of a medicine or drug.

A purchase, in this application, means a transaction involving at least two parties in which forms of payment such as cash, check, charge, debit, smart card, gift card, credit slip, or credit is exchanged for one or more goods or services in a retail store.

Purchase data, in this application, means data associated with purchases. For example, purchase data may include a product code for the product purchased, product description, product purchase list price, actual price paid, date of purchase, time of purchase, transaction ID, location of purchase, discount amount, discount type, and type of payment, and a PID.