Detection of Medicine Information with Optical Character Recognition using Android

Healthcare sector is one of the most important and rapidly growing sectors in today's world. With the changing lifestyle people need more medicines to cope up with the stress or any other disease. As a result, a lot of money is spent on medicines. Also, the medical waste generated is immense. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) the Health Care Waste Generation Rate (HCWGR) in the world is 2.5kg/bed/day. In India this rate is 1.55kg/bed/day. A major part of this waste is the medicines that we throw away because we do not have any information about them. This medical waste is increasing day by day endangering the planet. In the wake of Covid-19, the economic situation has become graver than ever. People need to find ways to save money for improving their financial condition. Our project addresses the same problem. In this project we have developed an application that will detect the medicines with the help of Optical Character Recognition (OCR). On the application we have provided information such as the name of the medicine, for which disease the medicine can be used, its side effects, the generic equivalent, its price, expiry date, alternate brands and quick tips. Additionally, we have created a chat box wherein the users can contact each other and exchange the medicines.