National Drug File – Reference Terminology (NDF-RT)

Code System Owner

https://www.oit.va.gov/Services/TRM/StandardPage.aspx?tid=5221

Production and publication of NDF-RT has ceased with the February 2018 release. From March 2018, the MED-RT terminology replaced NDF-RT.

NDF-RT is a concept-oriented terminology, a collection of concepts, each of which represents a single, unique meaning. Every concept has one fully-specified name and an arbitrary number of other names, all of which are intended to mean the same thing and are therefore synonymous terms. Synonymous terms from external vocabulary sources may have associated unique identifiers. Additionally, NDF-RT assigns an alphanumeric unique identifier (NUI) to every concept, maintained across releases to label and track that meaning.

Concepts in NDF-RT are organized into taxonomies, that is, hierarchies of concepts based on generalization. The meaning of each concept within a taxonomy is both more general than the meanings of its descendants (if any) and more specific than the meanings of its ancestors (if any).

As a reference terminology and ontology, NDF-RT provides a formal content model that describes and defines medications, both computationally and to humans, by naming relevant concepts via preferred and synonymous terms, and describing them via named relations to other terminology concepts, either within NDF-RT or in external terminologies. By content model, we mean the specific concepts and kinds, role and associational relationships, and conceptual properties in a reference terminology and ontology. Assuming a basic knowledge of content modeling and representational elements, the next sections flesh out the specific content model of NDF-RT.

In NDF-RTTM, generic ingredients or combinations thereof are described in terms of their active ingredients, mechanisms of action, physiologic effects, and therapeutics (indications and contraindications). Orderable (clinical) drug products inherit the descriptions of their generic ingredients, and are further described by local (VHA) drug classification, strength, units, and dose forms. All of the descriptive concepts can themselves be explained via their position in hierarchical classifications or taxonomies of related concepts.

Further information available from https://evs.nci.nih.gov/ftp1/NDF-RT/

NDF-RT was published ten times per calendar year with combined releases occurring in December/January and August/September.

To assert a particular version, the date (in YYYYMMDD format) for the release may be used.