RxMix: Three New Tutorials Available

The National Library of Medicine (NLM) is pleased to announce three new tutorials featuring RxMix, a Web application that allows users to combine functions from the RxNorm, NDF-RT (National Drug File - Reference Terminology), RxTerms and RxImageAccess APIs to create custom applications that can be run interactively or in a batch mode.

"Using RxMix to Retrieve NDCs for an Ingredient: Interactive Mode" describes major interface elements and functionalities of RxMix, and the process of building a multi-step workflow. The use case is retrieving National Drug Code identifiers (NDCs) for a given drug ingredient using the application" interactive mode, as opposed to the batch mode that is also available for retrieving larger datasets.

"Using RxMix to Retrieve NDCs for an Ingredient: Batch Mode" expands on the subject of the first tutorial by explaining how the same workflow can run in the batch mode. Results from batch mode are downloaded through a Web link that RxMix provides via e-mail.

"Pre-Built Workflows in RxMix. Finding Drugs that May Treat a Disease" features the library of pre-defined workflows in RxMix. These workflows are created by RxMix experts based on frequently occurring use cases. The tutorial shows how to return a list of RxNorm drugs that may treat a disease by utilizing a two-step workflow. The first workflow function queries an NDF-RT component of RxNorm for a matching disease concept name and the second workflow function finds related “reverse-role” NDF-RT concepts, i.e., drugs related to the matched disease concept.

The tutorials are available as links from the UMLS Video Learning Resources page and the NLM Distance Education Resources page.