OptiRecDrug Application Development for OCR-Based Drug Identification

The OptiRecDrug application is a drug identification program designed to assist patients, especially those who are visually impaired, partially sighted, or elderly, in the diagnosis and use of medication. Considering the high penetration rate of mobile phones and the availability of Android and iOS smart devices, this application has been developed as a mobile app. In addition, optical character recognition (OCR) is utilized in the implementation of this application for ease of use. In this regard, using the device camera and providing a photo of the drug packaging, drug specifications, including the name, dosage, and number of tablets, are extracted and presented to the patient. Moreover, by utilizing the RxNorm drug dictionary, additional drug information such as RxNorm codes, active ingredients, strengths, and drug interaction is also available.