Everything you wanted to know, about RxNorm

John Poikonen, PharmD

John@ePharmD.NET

Agenda

• The imperative of RxNorm

• Drug KB Industrial Complex

• RxNorm Under the covers

– Source

– Advantages

– Disadvantages

• Pearls

• Questions

10/17/2012 John@ePharmD.Net 2

Terminology Standards

• Medicine

– ICD, CPT, DSM

• Nursing

– NIC and NOC

• Pharmacy

– NDCs (yuk)

10/17/2012 John@ePharmD.Net 3

National Drug Codes

• They Suck.

• Wrong specificity for most clinical uses

• Non Standard

• Reused

• Variable format

• Impossible to normalize

10/17/2012 John@ePharmD.Net 4

Meaningful Use

10/17/2012 John@ePharmD.Net 5

HIE

• Medication Normalization an imperative.

10/17/2012 John@ePharmD.Net 6

Drug Monitoring and HIE

• Congressional Report on Interoperability

• MA Law

• ONC Webinar Tomorrow

– Enhancing Access to Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs through Health Information Technology: Work Group Recommendations

» https://www4.gotomeeting.com/register/994354015

10/17/2012 John@ePharmD.Net 7

What is RxNorm

• RxNorm is a set of drug concepts created and managed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) and available through the UMLS’s (Unified Medical Language System) Metathesaurus

• RxNorm initially created as a means to map generic concepts between the drug compendia

• RxNorm has since expanded to incorporate brand name concepts and different levels of drug concepts

• Commonly referred to as “one thing” but is actually an umbrella term for multiple drug concepts

10/17/2012 John@ePharmD.Net 8

10/17/2012 John@ePharmD.Net 9

10/17/2012 John@ePharmD.Net 10

RxNorm the best Drug KB

10/17/2012 John@ePharmD.Net 11

Drug KB Industrial Complex

• Drug KB Industry

– Software Development needs

– Past anticompetitive and antitrust activities

– Should move to better CDS not terminology

• Vendors Perspective

– Spaghetti software development

– Codes tied to software

– Message to Vendors Deal with it!

10/17/2012 John@ePharmD.Net 12

Pearls and Resources

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0N31_YgFEy8&feature=player_detailpage

• http://geekdoctor.blogspot.com/2011/11/benefits-of-rxnorm.html#

10/17/2012 John@ePharmD.Net 13

Summary

• RxNorm will be the standard for all medication interoperability

• RxNorm will be the standard for all medication allergy listing

• RxNorm supports granularity for most clinical uses of medication terminology, including eRx and Med Rec.

• Must insist that vendors convert to RxNorm for interoperability NOW!

• RxNorm is the best Drug KB available and is free

• Do not hesitate to contact me on specifics

10/17/2012 John@ePharmD.Net 14