September 23, 2014

This directory contains data files from the Veterans Health Administration
(VHA) National Drug File Reference Terminology (NDF-RT).  NDF-RT is the
terminology used by FDA and the FedMed collaboration to code these essential
pharmacologic properties of medications:
	Mechanism of Action
	Physiologic Effect
	Structural Class
These three subsets are available individually at:
     https://evs.nci.nih.gov/ftp1/FDA/NDF-RT
    
As of March 2007, the NDF-RT Public Edition is the version published for FDA,
FedMed, and other purposes outside the VA system.  This version contains all
of the core NDF-RT concepts from previous releases, and all concept NUIs
remain unchanged.  The only omission is data elements deemed useful solely for
internal VA operations.  See the Release Notes for additional detail.

Starting in January 2008, VHA has released a new version showing the logically
inferred view of the terminology, rather than the directly stated (defined)
assertions in the older release series.  They plan to provide a description of
the distinctive characteristics of this version, meanwhile released here as is
for those interested.

In January 2009, a major 2.0 revision was released, described in the "Changes"
document and the Release Notes.

In May 2009, the Public Edition added zipped Common Data Format (CDF) full and
diff load packages, containing terminology information intended for importing
into an Apelon DTS 3.4+ database by way of the DTS subscription import
facility.  The files consist of codes, name, relationships and other
source-specific attributes as well as other information required by the DTS
schema to maintain the integrity of the content within and among corresponding
DTS namespaces. For more information on importing these files into DTS, please
see the DTS Subscription Content Import Guide at
http://apelon-dts.wiki.sourceforge.net/space/showimage/dtssubscriptionimport-3.4.1.pdf

In May 2010, VHA released documentation in PDF format.  This file has been 
added to this directory.

In March 2014, VHA enhanced the NDF-RT semantic model.  This is to facilitate 
the meaningful use of its content and knowledge in EHRs.  Documentation with the
March 2014 date have been added to this directory.

September 2014: Since the VA is no longer maintaining National Drug File drug 
(ingredient-ingredient) interactions for use in VHA facilities, all drug interaction content 
has been removed from NDF-RT in this release.  This resulted in the permanent removal 
of 10,832 “[VA Drug Interaction]” concepts having the Severity property, as well as all 
Ingredient_1 and Ingredient_2 association relationships between those interaction concepts 
and their constituent ingredient pairs.

Additional information is also available at:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/research/umls/sourcereleasedocs/2008AB/NDFRT/index.html

NDF-RT Official Release Notes:
http://evs.nci.nih.gov/ftp1/NDF-RT/NDF-RT%20Public%20Edition%20Release%20Notes.txt

Contents - Files:

Changes in NDF-RT March 2014 Public Edition.pdf (Mar 2014 revision details)
NDF-RT.txt                                (all codes/names: tabbed text)
NDF-RT_XML.zip                            (full XML data file: zipped)
NDF-RT_XML_Inferred.zip                   (logically inferred version)
NDF-RT_Public_All.zip                     (all VHA release files: zipped)
NDF-RT Public Edition Release Notes.txt   (details on new release)
NDF-RT Documentation.pdf                  (documentation)
77_diff_<version-tag>_bin.zip             (Apelon DTS CDF diffs: zipped)
77_full_<version-tag>_bin.zip             (Apelon DTS CDF full: zipped)
ReadMe.txt                                (this file)

Contents - Directories:

Archive                                   (dated/earlier file versions)