Medicinal substance identification based on container recognition

A method of suggesting an identity of a drug within a drug container based on an image of at least a portion of the drug container captured by an image capture device, the method comprising:

• evaluating the image and determining that an objective feature which, alone, is uniquely determinative of the identity of the drug is absent from the image;
• identifying, in the image, a plurality of features that each, individually, do not uniquely identify the drug, but are collectively suggestive of the identity of the drug;
• retrieving, from a database storing a plurality of drug entries and a plurality of distinctive features related to the drug container associated with each of the drug entries, a candidate for the identity of the drug based on a combination of the plurality of features included in the image;
• determining a probability that the candidate matches the identity of the drug within the drug container;
• comparing the probability to a threshold minimum probability;
• and
• requesting manual entry of a user-specified identity of the drug via an input device in response to determining that the probability is not greater than the threshold minimum probability.

A system for suggesting an identity of a drug within a drug container, the system comprising:

• an image capture circuit that captures an image of a portion of a label provided to the drug container;
• a non-transitory computer storage medium that stores a database comprising a plurality of drug entries and a plurality of features associated with each of the drug entries, wherein
• each of the plurality of features associated with each drug entry is suggestive of a drug identity corresponding to the drug entry but does not, alone, uniquely identify the drug identity;
• a processor that evaluates content included in the image and identifies a candidate for the identity of the drug by evaluating each of the plurality of features included in the image and referencing the drug database;
• and
• an input device that receives a user-specified identity of the drug, wherein
• the processor determines a degree of certainty to which the candidate matches the identity of the drug, and requests entry of the user-specified identity when the degree of certainty does not exceed a threshold minimum certainty.

A method of suggesting an identity of a drug within a drug container based on an image of at least a portion of the drug container captured by an image capture device, the method comprising:

• evaluating the image and determining that an objective feature which, alone, is uniquely determinative of the identity of the drug is absent from the image;
• identifying, in the image, a plurality of features that each, individually, do not uniquely identify the drug, but are collectively suggestive of the identity of the drug;
• retrieving, from a database storing a plurality of drug entries and a plurality of distinctive features related to the drug container associated with each of the drug entries, a candidate for the identity of the drug based on a combination of the plurality of features included in the image;
• presenting the candidate to a user;
• requesting manual entry of confirmation that the candidate matches the identity of the drug appearing on a label provided to the drug container;
• and
• initiating printing of a label comprising label content comprising the identity of the dug in response to receiving said confirmation to be applied to another container that is to store the drug.

A method of suggesting an identity of a drug within a drug container based on an image of at least a portion of the drug container captured by an image capture device, the method comprising:

• evaluating the image and determining that an objective feature which, alone, is uniquely determinative of the identity of the drug is absent from the image;
• identifying, in the image, a plurality of features that each, individually, do not uniquely identify the drug, but are collectively suggestive of the identity of the drug;
• and
• retrieving, from a database storing a plurality of drug entries and a plurality of distinctive features related to the drug container associated with each of the drug entries, a candidate for the identity of the drug based on a combination of the plurality of features included in the image, wherein
• said determining that the objective feature is absent from the image comprises detecting an absence of a computer-readable barcode from a portion of the label provided to the drug container appearing in the image.