RxNorm March 2018 Release Available

RxNorm March 2018 Release Available. NLM Tech Bull. 2018 Mar-Apr;(421):b2.

The March full monthly release of RxNorm is available as of Monday, March 5, 2018 and includes a new "Oral Tablet with Sensor" dose form, "Breath-Actuated" qualitative distinction, and a new unit of measure "SQ-HMD". The new Oral Tablet with Sensor dose form is defined as a tablet taken orally that digitally tracks if patients have ingested their medication. RxNorm also includes a new qualitative distinction: Breath-Actuated. This qualitative distinction improves the identification of select asthma products indicated for children. A new unit of measure SQ-HDM is used in the normalized name of a drug indicated for house dust mite-induced allergic rhinitis. SQ is a method of standardization of biological potency, major allergen content, and complexity of the allergen extract; HDM is an abbreviation for house dust mite.

As a reminder, the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) is replacing its National Drug File-Reference Terminology (NDF-RT) with Medication Reference Terminology (MED-RT). The last release of NDF-RT is in the RxNorm full March release and will remain in the RxNorm full monthly releases for the next several months. There are no plans to include MED-RT in RxNorm; however, MED-RT will be included in the UMLS Metathesaurus along with RxNorm and its source vocabularies. The anticipated first release date of MED-RT is Monday, March 5, 2018. For upcoming information about the MED-RT release, see Federal Medication Terminologies.