Pillbox – a website for tablet/capsule identification

The National Library of Medicine has a website know as Pillbox beta that allows anyone to use various identifiers on a tablet or capsule, i.e. imprint, shape, color, size and/or scoring, to quickly identify a medication. I’ve used systems like this many times for the emergency department when a patient would roll in the door with ten different medications all thrown together in a plastic baggie. The nurse would bring them to the pharmacy and say “I need you to tell me what these are”. I tried holding the baggie to my head like the Great Carnac on Carson, but most of the time I had to use other references to help me out.

According to the Pillbox site:

Pillbox was developed to aid in the identification of unknown solid dosage pharmaceuticals. The system combines high-resolution images of tablets and capsules with FDA-approved appearance information (imprint, shape, color, etc.) to enable users to visually search for and identify an unknown solid dosage pharmaceutical.

This system is designed for use by emergency physicians, first responders, other health care providers, Poison Control Center staff, and concerned citizens.

The system enables users to identify solid dosage forms based on physical criteria: imprint (characters or number printed on a medication), shape, color, size, and scoring. Users are shown thumbnail images of possible matches. These images are continually updated as the user enters additional information.

Once a solid dosage form has been identified, additional information is provided, including brand/generic name, ingredients, and the National Drug File identification number. Links are provided to NLM drug information resources, such as FDA-approved label information (DailyMed) and the Drug Information Portal, which searches all NLM drug information resources.

Once identified, Pillbox offers additional information on the medication, such as a scalable image, description, product code, etc. For even greater detail, Pillbox has links that will take you to the FDA Drug label at the DailyMed website and to additional information on the drug at the Drug Information Portal on the NLM website. I spent some time searching for drugs based on various criteria and have to say that I think the overall design is pretty nice. Pillbox is still in the beta phase, but I think it’s a must add to any pharmacists drug information toolbox.