A suburban Chicago hospital is the first hospital in Illinois to offer a 24-hour vending machine for prescription drugs.
The service is called InstyMeds and it's for emergency room patients at MetroSouth Medical Center in Blue Island.
It's filled with drugs commonly used for emergency patients. The idea is to help patients avoid having to search for a pharmacy at all hours when they're sent home from the ER.
ER doctors enter prescription details electronically so the machine can determine patients' insurance information including co-pays. Patients can use a debit or credit card to make their purchases.
InstyMeds is a Minneapolis-based corporation with medication dispensing machines in more than 30 states.
Copyright AP - Associated Press
