a medication administration system that includes a system of pillboxes , a pharmacy workstation , and a system of attendant workstation . the pharmacy workstation reads rfid or barcode tags on the pillboxes and medication wrappers containing medication units as the medication units are checked into the pillboxes to ensure that the pillboxes are filled in accordance the appropriate prescription regimens . the attendant workstations read the rfid or barcode tags on the pillboxes and medication wrappers as the medication units are checked out of the pillboxes to ensure that the medications are administered in accordance the appropriate prescription regimens . the attendant workstations may activate alarms , which may include communicating the alarms to a central monitoring station or mobile communication devices assigned to healthcare providers , when the determine that a pillbox in not correctly filled , when a medication has been checked out of a pillbox improperly , or when a medication has not been checked out on time .