Rxnorm Files for Vista/RPMS

Welcome to the homepage for the RxNorm VISTA/RPMS Support. I am Sam Habiel, and I am the developer for these packages. I can be reached at sam dot habiel at gmail dot com.

What is Rxnorm?

RxNorm is a standardized vocabulary set for Drugs in the United States. The goal of RxNorm is drug nomenclature standardization and systems interoperability. More information on RxNorm can be found at ​http://www.nlm.nih.gov/research/umls/rxnorm/.

Why do I want this?

RxNorm is necessary for interoperability with other systems. If you use VISTA alone without having to talk to any other system, then you don't need RxNorm. However, if you perform external drug interactions, send CCDA documents, or archive patient records for CCR, you are going to need RxNorm. For Meaningful Use, you are required to have RxNorm for various purposes.

What does this release contain?

This release contains Fileman files corresponding to most of public domain RxNorm (archived data is not loaded into VISTA). It also contains utilities for querying RxNorm for specific information and a utility to add drugs to the drug files automatically based on an RxNorm number.

It's important to note that the public domain RxNorm files here differ from the NLM prescribable subset of RxNorm. While both are public domain, the prescribable subset does not contain the VA datasets that enable translation between VISTA and RxNorm. These are available in the full RxNorm package from the NLM.

How can I install Rxnorm on VISTA/RPMS?

As of version 0.02 (currently the version 2.2), this version changes how you would do installation. You now install the dictionary file (which you need to only install once unless it changes) and then install the data file, which changes month to month. The data installation now takes 30 minutes to 60 minutes since it is transported as globals.
Installation Order:

• DD and routines: source:ccr/trunk/rxnorm/tags/2.2/RXNORM_FOR_VISTA_2P2.KID​
• Public Domain Data (unzip first): source:ccr/trunk/rxnorm/tags/2.2/RXNORM_FOR_VISTA_PD_DATA_11P2013.GKID.7z​

Typical Transcript for Installation: InstallTranscriptRxNorm

NB: The releases on this server only incorporate terms with Restriction Levels 0, 1, and 4. First Databank Codes are not included because they are Restriction Level 3. Restriction levels legalese can be found in the RXNORM SOURCES Description for SRL field (fyi: SRL = Source Restriction Level); and actual restriction level can be found in the same file for each record.

Contents of the KIDS file

• RXNORM CONCEPTS (176.001) corresponding to free content in RXNCONSO.RRF
• RXNORM NDC TO RXCUI (176.002) corresponding to the NDC/RXNORM subset of RXNSAT.RRF
• RXNORM SOURCES (176.003) corresponding to RXNSAB.RRF

What can I do with Rxnorm

I haven't published APIs yet, but I have done the following:

• Resolve a VISTA drug to an Rxnorm Semantic Clinical Drug code.
• Resolve an NDC to an Rxnorm Semantic Clinical Drug code.
• Resolve an NDC to a VISTA VA Product.
• Get brand names for a specific generic.

Technical Details

• Package File Entry Name is C0CR