Patients will soon be able to scan a medicine's barcode to watch a video tutorial on how to use it correctly, in a "groundbreaking" project by a Leeds pharmacy and a technology company.

Gane Data has partnered with Medichem, which owns a pharmacy and a wholesaling business, to secure €1.5 million from the EU to research new uses for 2D barcodes on medicine packaging and medical products, the two companies told C+D.

The companies were studying how barcodes on medical products such as insulin pens and glucometers could be scanned by a patient's smartphone to link to online videos about how to use the device correctly, said Gane Data chief executive Altaf Sadique last week (January 9).

Gane Data has partnered with Medichem to study how barcodes on medical products could be scanned by a patient's smartphone to link to online videos about how to use them correctly	More on use of barcodes and scanning in pharmacy NPA urges MHRA to rethink stance on scanners following counterfeit generics seizures across Europe Wholesalers challenge pharmacies to develop medicine scanners Counterfeits battle could see POM scanners in pharmacies by 2017
	The "groundbreaking" barcode technology could also be used on medicine packets to store confidential patient data and keep track of the medicine as it travelled through the supply chain, he said.

Mr Sadique said he expected to have the first barcode prototypes finished in April, when the company would begin a nine-month trial on 50 of Medichem's patients.

The project team successfully bid for the funding in 2012, as part of a wider EU scheme to find innovative ways to use the internet in healthcare. They began the two-year project in Leeds in April 2013 and Mr Sadique said it was the largest of seven health research projects taking place across Europe as part of the scheme.

Under new anti-counterfeiting regulations all pharmacies could be expected to have a barcode scanner by 2017 and Mr Sadique said he hoped his technology would be available for manufactures and pharmacists to use by then.

"When you've got medicines that are uniquely identifiable at a blister level or packet level, people can start to use that information as part of supply chain management," he told C+D.

Medichem managing director Raj Dhand said the barcodes would help pharmacists to "audit every step" of the supply chain, from manufacturer through to delivery to a patient.

"When my drivers take [a medicine] out, they'll be able to scan it. There's more accuracy from a pharmacy point of view," he told C+D.

Linking to video tutorials would be helpful if a patient was forgetful or a pharmacist had not taken time to explain how to use the medical device correctly, he added.

In June, the British Association of Pharmaceutical Wholesalers (BAPW) challenged multiples to work with wholesalers and IT software suppliers to come up with a working model for scanning medicines across the supply chain.

What would be the best approach to create a working model for scanning medicines at pharmacy level? Comment below or email us at [email protected] You can also find C+D on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook