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

Haneen Banjar,Sara Alhadrami,Reema Munshi,Mayda Alrige,Rahaf Alrowithi,Esraa Magrabi

doi:10.3390/ijerph19052875

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.

Highlights

Published: 1 March 2022Medication wastage can be reduced, resulting in more cost-effective spending, which the Ministry of Health wants to achieve in line with Saudi Arabia’s 2030 economic reform program [1]
The prototype device was implemented to automatically verify and classify medications based on their type and validity using artificial intelligence methods
This research considered the importance of awareness that includes an educational website regarding the methods of proper handling of medicines in relation to preservation and storage operations and safe ways to dispose of them and about the expiration date written on the medicine packages to encourage patients and their families once they stop using the medicines to bring them to the medication take-back point instead of disposing of them in unhealthy and unsafe ways for the environment and society

Summary

Introduction

Published: 1 March 2022Medication wastage can be reduced, resulting in more cost-effective spending, which the Ministry of Health wants to achieve in line with Saudi Arabia’s 2030 economic reform program [1]. The “misuse” of prescription drugs is one of the behaviors that are on the rise in the United States [2]. There is considerable pharmaceutical waste but there are no accurate and current statistics available. The waste of these drugs has caused biological and ethical problems that should be understood from different perspectives. Alnahas et al [3] demonstrated that the German Federal Ministry for the Environment has made it clear that pharmaceutical organizations in both the industrialized and developing world offer a variety of synthetic chemicals at a rate of 100,000 tons per year. A small fraction is used while a larger fraction will be unused and/or expired resulting in a large value of pharmaceutical waste. The presence of small amounts of active pharmaceutical ingredients in the soil and waterways could impact the environment

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