The US' National Library of Medicine (NLM) has enhanced the Drug Naming Standard for Electronic Health Records. The RxNorm standard clinical drug vocabulary produced by the NLM is now said to contain more accurate and complete connections between National Drug Codes (NDCs) and standard non-proprietary names of medications recommended for use in electronic health records (EHRs). NLM, a component of the National Institutes of Health, claims to be the world's largest medical library.
The RxNorm includes, for the first time, the complete set of NDCs from Thomson Reuters' Red Book, a drug database widely used in the healthcare industry. NDCs are product identifiers assigned by manufacturers and packagers of drugs in the US.
Accurate and complete connections between NDC product codes and RxNorm standard names and identifiers are seen to have many potential uses within an individual patient's EHR. These include the use of an NDC on a medicine bottle to speed standard data entry or to trigger an alert written in the RxNorm standard that could prevent a medication error.
The Red Book is expected to provide RxNorm with better linkages between branded drugs and their NDCs, information about whether or not drugs are still on the market, and Drug Enforcement Agency Class for controlled drugs. This additional information is instrumental in the production of the Current Prescribable Subset of RxNorm.
Search for more Industry codes and standards
To access our daily STM news feed through your iPhone, iPad, or other smartphones, please visit www.myscoope.com for a mobile friendly reading experience.
