title: Enabling Hierarchical View of RxNorm with NDF-RT Drug Classes.
abstract: NDF-RT is the proposed source of drug classification information. We set out to construct a hierarchy of NDF-RT drug classes and RxNorm medications and evaluate it on medication records data. NDF-RT and RxNorm are distributed in different file formats, require different tools to manipulate and linking the two into a hierarchy is a non-trivial exercise. Medication data in RxNorm from two institutions was constrained by the hierarchy. Only 37% of records from one and 65% from another institution were accessible. We subsequently enriched the RxNorm mapping in NDF-RT by exploiting relationships between concepts for branded and generic drugs. Coverage improved dramatically to 93% for both institutions. To improve usability of the resulting hierarchy, we grouped clinical drugs by corresponding clinical drug form.
authors.affiliation: Recombinant Data Corp., Newton, MA;
authors.forename: Matvey B
authors.initials: MB
authors.lastname: Palchuk
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Klumpenaar
authors.forename: Tarang
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Jatkar
authors.forename: Ralph J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Zottola
authors.forename: William G
authors.initials: WG
authors.lastname: Adams
authors.forename: Aaron H
authors.initials: AH
authors.lastname: Abend
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D004364:Pharmaceutical Preparations; D062245:RxNorm; D018875:Vocabulary, Controlled
chemical_list: D004364:Pharmaceutical Preparations