VANDF (National Drug File) - Synopsis

Web site:
http://www.pbm.va.gov/NationalFormulary.asp

Authority
The National Drug File (NDF) is produced by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Health Administration (VHA).

Purpose
NDF is a centrally maintained electronic drug list used by the VHA hospitals and clinics. Facilities use the NDF to check drug interactions, to manage orders, and to send outpatient prescriptions to regional automated mail-out pharmacies.

Description
NDF includes information on clinical drugs, drug classes, ingredients and National Drug Code (NDC) Directory codes.

Metathesaurus Scope
The Metathesaurus representation of NDF includes only clinical drugs, ingredients, drug classes, and NDC Codes for clinical drugs.

The Metathesaurus representation of NDF has approximately 29,640 clinical drugs; 8,305 ingredients; and 578 drug classes.

Update Frequency
NDF is updated every six weeks.

Metathesaurus Update Frequency
NDF is updated in each Metathesaurus release as part of RxNorm.

Sites Consulted

1. Carter JS, Brown SH, Bauer BA, Elkin PL, Erlbaum MS, Froehling DA, Lincoln MJ, Rosenbloom ST, Wahner-Roedler DL, Tuttle MS. Categorical information in pharmaceutical terminologies. AMIA Annu Symp Proc. 2006:116-20. Cited in: PubMed; PMID 17238314. Available from: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1839555
2. Nelson SJ, Brown SH, Erlbaum MS, Olson N, Powell T, Carlsen B, Carter J, Tuttle MS, Hole WT. A semantic normal form for clinical drugs in the UMLS: early experiences with the VANDF. Proc AMIA Symp. 2002:557-61. Cited in: PubMed; PMID 12463886. Available from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2244318/.