RxNorm
RxNorm is the National Library of Medicine's standardized nomenclature for clinical drugs, providing normalized names and unique concept identifiers (RxCUIs) for medications. Developed to support interoperability between healthcare systems, RxNorm links its standardized drug names to the vocabularies commonly used in pharmacy management and drug interaction software, including First Databank, Micromedex, Multum, and Gold Standard Drug Database. By providing links between these diverse vocabularies, RxNorm enables seamless communication between systems that do not use the same software or terminology. RxNorm organizes drug information into a hierarchy of term types representing different levels of specificity, from ingredients through clinical drug components to specific branded and generic products. The nomenclature covers prescription drugs, over-the-counter medications, and now includes the United States Pharmacopeia Compendial Nomenclature containing all Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients. RxNorm is updated monthly with new drug products, revisions to existing entries, and retirement of obsolete terms to maintain currency with the evolving pharmaceutical landscape. The system supports multiple use cases including electronic health records, e-prescribing, pharmacy management systems, drug interaction checking, clinical decision support, and public health surveillance.
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