Every year, an estimated 100 million euros worth of medicines is thrown away. Forty percent of it ends up unnecessarily in the trash because too much has been prescribed. The box offers a solution.
Mini pharmacy at home
The medicine cabinet works quite simply. “The locker is actually a kind of mini-pharmacy,” says pharmacist Fatima El Bouzidi. The correct dosage is delivered at the touch of a button. This prevents waste.
Pills that are left over when someone, for example, stops medication due to side effects, are usually often lost. “Then you end up with a lot of pills that are no longer in the pharmacy but have been at the patient’s home and that you can therefore no longer take back. And then you are sometimes throwing thousands of euros in the trash.”
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But if there are medicines left in the special cupboard, they can still be used. “It has been kept in the right conditions,” explains El Bouzidi.
Multiple trials
Waste of medicines is therefore a huge problem, also knows Charlotte Bekker of the Radboud UMC, who does a lot of research into this. That hospital is therefore also conducting a trial to combat waste, which will be expanded this month to three other hospitals. It is a different test than the medicine cabinet.
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“We seal the medicines extra with a temperature chip,” Bekker tells EditieNL. “If medicines remain, they are returned to the pharmacy. If the seal is not broken, we can reissue those unopened packages. We also look at the temperature logger: a green light keeps the medicines at the right temperature. “
Environmental pollution
Such tests are important, according to Bekker, because medicine waste has many consequences. “We know that many patients keep it at home and then throw it away or flush it down the toilet. That leads to environmental pollution. And if those drugs are produced for free, the CO2 emissions from production are also unnecessary. And the wasted healthcare costs,” sums up Bekker on. “You prefer prevention, but otherwise we have to see whether reissuing medicines is an option.”
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And what does she think of the medicine cabinet? “I think it’s a nice idea to see if you can use technology to ensure that medicines are safely stored and can be reissued. I think we still have to find out whether it is user-friendly, but we will investigate that.”
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