Wolters Kluwer Health Releases User-Friendly Version Of RxNorm; Program Integrates National Library of Medicine's Drug Concept Identifier with Existing WKHealth Concepts.CONSHOHOCKEN, Pa. -- Wolters Kluwer Health (WKHealth), the leading drug and health information provider, today announced the release of its RxNorm Cross Reference Files, a more user-friendly version of the National Library of Medicine's (NLM Software that runs in a NetWare server. Although NetWare servers store DOS and Windows applications, they do not execute them. All programs that run in a NetWare server must be compiled into the NLM format. They are typically written in C and use Novell's libraries. ) standardized nomenclature for clinical drugs. The new data provides a subset of the fields available in the Unified Medical Language System The Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) is a compendium of many controlled vocabularies in the biomedical sciences. It provides a mapping structure between these vocabularies and thus allows to translate between the various terminology systems; it may also be viewed as a (UMLS UMLS Unified Medical Language System (US National Library of Medicine) UMLS University of Michigan Law School UMLS UCLES Mailing List Service (University of Cambridge; UK) ) Metathesaurus for RxNorm and maps them to existing WKHealth concepts. RxNorm has been identified to support the electronic prescribing (eRx) initiatives included in the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003. By providing NLM's RxNorm standard drug identifier, it enables healthcare providers to send messages between systems and map drug concepts between proprietary data sets at a level other than the National Drug Code (NDC NDC National Drug Code NDC NATO Defense College NDC National Documentation Centre (National Hellenic Research Foundation, Athens, Greece) NDC National Dairy Council NDC National Democratic Congress ). "The potential uses for RxNorm are tremendous," said Alan Hess, Vice President and General Manager of Wolters Kluwer Health's Clinical Tools business unit. "The initial users include eRx vendors, pharmacy chains and pharmacy vendors participating in eRx pilot projects. But eventually we see RxNorm as a way to share drug concepts for formularies between pharmacy benefit managers and electronic medical records." The RxNorm subset Wolters Kluwer Health offers provides several enhancements over the NLM's program. Specifically: --While the NLM's RxNorm is currently updated quarterly or monthly, WKHealth's product is updated weekly and monthly. --While NLM's UMLS provides mapping to WKHealth's generic drug generic drug, a drug sold or prescribed under the nonproprietary name of its active ingredients or under a generally descriptive name rather than under a brand or trade name. concepts, WKHealth's RxNorm Cross Reference Files additionally include mapping to WKHealth's drug concepts of Drug Descriptor (1) A word or phrase that identifies a document in an indexed information retrieval system. (2) A category name used to identify data. (operating system) descriptor ID and Drug Name ID. WKHealth's RxNorm Cross Reference Files include a "variance" flag to identify nuances with mappings between RxNorm and WKHealth's drug concepts. About Wolters Kluwer Health Wolters Kluwer Health (Conshohocken, PA) is a leading provider of information for professionals and students in medicine, nursing, allied health, pharmacy and the pharmaceutical industry. Major brands include traditional publishers of medical and drug reference tools and textbooks, such as Lippincott Williams & Wilkins and Facts & Comparisons; electronic information providers, such as Ovid Technologies, Medi-Span and ProVation Medical; and pharmaceutical information providers Adis International and Source(R). Wolters Kluwer is a leading multinational publisher and information services company. The company's core markets are spread across the health, corporate services, finance, tax, accounting, law, regulatory and education sectors. Wolters Kluwer has annual revenues (2004) of EUR EUR In currencies, this is the abbreviation for the Euro. Notes: The currency market, also known as the Foreign Exchange market, is the largest financial market in the world, with a daily average volume of over US $1 trillion. 3.3 billion, employs approximately 18,400 people worldwide and maintains operations across Europe, North America and Asia Pacific. Wolters Kluwer is headquartered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Its depositary receipts of shares are quoted on the Euronext Amsterdam (WKL WKL Wirtualna Kawiarenka Lubin ) and are included in the AEX AEX See: Amsterdam Exchange and Euronext 100 indices. |
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