An Intelligent System for Proper Management and Disposal of Unused and Expired Medications

Abstract

For years, several countries have been concerned about how to dispose of unused pharmaceuticals that can endanger human health and the environment. Moreover, some people are in desperate need of medical attention and medications, but they lack the financial resources to obtain them. In Saudi Arabia, there are no take-back medicine programs, and there is no published research on how medications properly are disposed. The aim of this research is to use the power of artificial intelligence to assist in the proper management and disposal of expired and unused medications and to develop a prototype device for collecting medication by automatically classifying medications for proper disposal and donation. In this research, artificial intelligence technologies such as web-based expert systems, image recognition and classification algorithms, chatbots, and the internet of things are used to assist in a take-back medications program. In conclusion, the prototype design of a web-based expert system and the device reduced improper disposal risks by providing significant advice on the safe disposal of unwanted pharmaceuticals. By using an organized method of collecting expired medications, the benefits were made possible.

Smart Identification and Notification of Drugs in Medical Pharmacy Using Iot

“…According to [3] Not much is known about the amount of waste that pharmaceutical companies generate. However, it is widely believed that their waste has caused ethical and biological problems.…”

Modeling Predictors of Medication Waste Reduction Intention in Algeria: Extending the Theory of Planned Behavior

“…As a result, a large part of the medications ends up in the trash, and many are completely unused and not expired [ 11 ]. Practically, many households keep significant amounts of (expired, unused, and/or unwanted) medications in their homes [ 1 , 15 , 16 , 17 ], and sometimes the storage method is wrong; when they want to get rid of unnecessary medications, households often resort to throwing them in the garbage, toilets, sinks, or sewage channels [ 15 , 17 , 18 ], and a small percentage of them are returned to unused/expired medication take-back points or pharmacies (for example, approximately 11% and 14% in India and Saudi Arabia, respectively) [ 16 , 19 ].…”

“…In fact, medication waste is a complex issue, with economic, environmental, social, and ethical dimensions [ 15 , 18 ], and accordingly, most of the methods of medications disposal (mentioned above) fall within the irresponsible and unethical behaviors that have a serious impact on human health and the environment, including animals, water, and plants [ 20 ]. The practice of wasting medications as immoral [ 15 ] and irresponsible behavior includes the excessive purchase of medications (such as painkillers, ointments, etc. ); storage of unused medications; throwing medications in rubbish, latrines, and drains; as well as donating stored medications to relatives, friends, and neighbors [ 10 ].…”

“…Thus, the waste of medications is considered a serious problem which has serious negative consequences on the environment and society [ 13 , 15 , 20 , 25 , 26 , 27 ] and public health [ 6 , 28 , 29 ], and leads to economic and financial losses [ 26 , 30 ] that greatly affect the health care budget [ 19 , 31 ] in various countries of the world. Accordingly, solving this problem requires the concerted efforts of many stakeholders [ 31 ], and taking appropriate measures to reduce medication waste [ 4 ].…”

Potential of use of modern information technology solutions in the work of hospital infection control team, including antibiotic therapy optimisation, reduction of alert pathogen infections and vaccination popularisation

“…Machine learning (Ml) has already proven its usefulness in medicine, mainly in medical image-based diagnostics, including radiology imaging, like X-ray [13] or computed tomography (Ct) [1], magnetic resonance imaging (MRi) [16] and interpretation of visual images of skin pathologies [17]. new fields of medical applications of these technologies are invented, from expedited and deepened education of medical staff [5], automated pooling data from multiple scientific studies for elevated-level analyses [18], optimisation of drugs and medical equipment supply chain and logistics [19], designing and coordinating take-back programmes for unused medications [20] to making drug supply chains counterfeit-proof [21]. by lowering the threshold of entry cost into research, that now can utilise the already existing large datasets for analyses by multiple research projects, machine learning also provides new hopes to people suffering from numerous diseases that, even if put together, affect a small part of the general population (ailments affecting 1 per 2,000 people constitute rare diseases according to the definition adopted by the european union) [22] or diseases affecting mainly the populations of poor countries, which have been thus far orphaned by the mainstream of the medical scientific community and industry as economically unattractive [23].…”