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. Public domain corresponds to UMLS Restriction Level 0. Read further below to see how to get proprietary codes into your data file like First Databank GCNs and SNOMED codes.

How much does this cost?

This release is licensed under ​AGPL v3.0 and is free as in free beer. Commercial use for commercial entities running VISTA can be obtained for $2000 per VISTA instance; commercial license can be found here: RxNormForVista/CommercialLicense. Support costs for monthly updates are $100/month per VISTA instance both for AGPL and commercial users.

How can I install RxNorm on VISTA/RPMS?

Before you install

YOU MUST READ THIS BEFORE INSTALLING

The RxNorm globals file is about 2.5 GB, and when loaded it takes up about 2.5GB. You therefore need to have at least 10 GB on your drive.

It is very highly recommended that you load and maintain RxNorm in the ^C0CRXN global in an UNJOURNALED portion of your Mumps Database. The data is reproducible and does not need to be journaled; and journaling it is very expensive in terms of journal size. In addition, once loaded, it will not change until the next load. Maintaining back-ups of your database will be easier this way.

RxNorm contains very long text values. You must ensure that your Mumps database can do at least 16,000 characters in a single global node.

TODO: GT.M Example

Installation

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 with 7z first): source:ccr/trunk/rxnorm/tags/2.2/RXNORM_FOR_VISTA_PD_DATA_11P2013.GKID.7z​

Installation is a normal KIDS file installation. There is nothing special about it.

Contents of the KIDS file

Files

Name	Number	Global	RxNorm NLM File	Approx # of entries at the end of 2013
RXNORM CONCEPT NAMES AND SOURCES	176.001	^C0CRXN(176.001)	RXNCONSO.RRF	1,000,000
RXNORM SIMPLE CONCEPT AND ATOM ATTRIBUTES	176.002	^C0CRXN(176.002)	RXNSAT.RRF	7,000,000
RXNORM SOURCE INFORMATION	176.003	^C0CRXN(176.003)	RXNSAB.RRF	13
RXNORM SEMANTIC TYPES	176.004	^C0CRXN(176.004)	RXNSTY.RRF	400,000
RXNORM RELATED CONCEPTS	176.005	^C0CRXN(176.005)	RXNREL.RRF	5,000,000
RXNORM DOCUMENTATION FOR ABBREVIATED VALUES	176.006	^C0CRXN(176.006)	RXNDOC.RRF	3,000

Pharmacy Files Computed Fields

File Name	File number	Field Name	Field Number	Description
DRUG	50	RXNCUI	176.001	Pointer to the Semantic Clinical Drug in 176.001 that corresponds to this drug.
DRUG	50	RXN SCD NAME	176.002	Canonical Clinical Drug name according to RxNorm.
VA PRODUCT	50.68	COMPUTED GCNSEQNO	176.001	Multiple of GCNs corresponding to a VA PRODUCT

Routines

Routine	Description	Special Remarks
C0CRXNnn	Complied cross reference routines (12 routines on Fileman 22.2)	Routines compiled dynamically; not shipped in KIDS build.
C0CRXNRD	Import RxNorm data from NLM files	See below for API
C0CRXNLK	RxNorm mapping APIs for VISTA	See below for APIs
C0CRXNAD	Add a drug to drug file based on RxNorm code	See below for API

What can I do with RxNorm

Technical Details

• Package File Entry Name is C0CR