Enhancing the drug ontology with semantically-rich representations of National Drug Codes and RxNorm unique concept identifiers

Abstract Background The Drug Ontology (DrOn) is a modular, extensible ontology of drug products, their ingredients, and their biological activity created to enable comparative effectiveness and health services researchers to query National Drug Codes (NDCs) that represent products by ingredient, by...

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Main Authors: Jonathan P. Bona, Mathias Brochhausen, William R. Hogan
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: BMC 2019-12-01
Series:BMC Bioinformatics
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1186/s12859-019-3192-8
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author Jonathan P. Bona
Mathias Brochhausen
William R. Hogan
author_facet Jonathan P. Bona
Mathias Brochhausen
William R. Hogan
author_sort Jonathan P. Bona
collection DOAJ
description Abstract Background The Drug Ontology (DrOn) is a modular, extensible ontology of drug products, their ingredients, and their biological activity created to enable comparative effectiveness and health services researchers to query National Drug Codes (NDCs) that represent products by ingredient, by molecular disposition, by therapeutic disposition, and by physiological effect (e.g., diuretic). It is based on the RxNorm drug terminology maintained by the U.S. National Library of Medicine, and on the Chemical Entities of Biological Interest ontology. Both national drug codes (NDCs) and RxNorm unique concept identifiers (RXCUIS) can undergo changes over time that can obfuscate their meaning when these identifiers occur in historic data. We present a new approach to modeling these entities within DrOn that will allow users of DrOn working with historic prescription data to more easily and correctly interpret that data. Results We have implemented a full accounting of national drug codes and RxNorm unique concept identifiers as information content entities, and of the processes involved in managing their creation and changes. This includes an OWL file that implements and defines the classes necessary to model these entities. A separate file contains an instance-level prototype in OWL that demonstrates the feasibility of this approach to representing NDCs and RXCUIs and the processes of managing them by retrieving and representing several individual NDCs, both active and inactive, and the RXCUIs to which they are connected. We also demonstrate how historic information about these identifiers in DrOn can be easily retrieved using a simple SPARQL query. Conclusions An accurate model of how these identifiers operate in reality is a valuable addition to DrOn that enhances its usefulness as a knowledge management resource for working with historic data.
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spelling doaj.art-9caf95c5db974c34b5fb350ebcde14fe2022-12-21T21:31:58ZengBMCBMC Bioinformatics1471-21052019-12-0120S2111410.1186/s12859-019-3192-8Enhancing the drug ontology with semantically-rich representations of National Drug Codes and RxNorm unique concept identifiersJonathan P. Bona0Mathias Brochhausen1William R. Hogan2Department of Biomedical Informatics, University of Arkansas for Medical SciencesDepartment of Health Outcomes & Biomedical Informatics, University of FloridaDepartment of Health Outcomes & Biomedical Informatics, University of FloridaAbstract Background The Drug Ontology (DrOn) is a modular, extensible ontology of drug products, their ingredients, and their biological activity created to enable comparative effectiveness and health services researchers to query National Drug Codes (NDCs) that represent products by ingredient, by molecular disposition, by therapeutic disposition, and by physiological effect (e.g., diuretic). It is based on the RxNorm drug terminology maintained by the U.S. National Library of Medicine, and on the Chemical Entities of Biological Interest ontology. Both national drug codes (NDCs) and RxNorm unique concept identifiers (RXCUIS) can undergo changes over time that can obfuscate their meaning when these identifiers occur in historic data. We present a new approach to modeling these entities within DrOn that will allow users of DrOn working with historic prescription data to more easily and correctly interpret that data. Results We have implemented a full accounting of national drug codes and RxNorm unique concept identifiers as information content entities, and of the processes involved in managing their creation and changes. This includes an OWL file that implements and defines the classes necessary to model these entities. A separate file contains an instance-level prototype in OWL that demonstrates the feasibility of this approach to representing NDCs and RXCUIs and the processes of managing them by retrieving and representing several individual NDCs, both active and inactive, and the RXCUIs to which they are connected. We also demonstrate how historic information about these identifiers in DrOn can be easily retrieved using a simple SPARQL query. Conclusions An accurate model of how these identifiers operate in reality is a valuable addition to DrOn that enhances its usefulness as a knowledge management resource for working with historic data.https://doi.org/10.1186/s12859-019-3192-8Drug ontologyOntology developmentNational drug codesRxcuisDrug identifiersOntological realism
spellingShingle Jonathan P. Bona
Mathias Brochhausen
William R. Hogan
Enhancing the drug ontology with semantically-rich representations of National Drug Codes and RxNorm unique concept identifiers
BMC Bioinformatics
Drug ontology
Ontology development
National drug codes
Rxcuis
Drug identifiers
Ontological realism
title Enhancing the drug ontology with semantically-rich representations of National Drug Codes and RxNorm unique concept identifiers
title_full Enhancing the drug ontology with semantically-rich representations of National Drug Codes and RxNorm unique concept identifiers
title_fullStr Enhancing the drug ontology with semantically-rich representations of National Drug Codes and RxNorm unique concept identifiers
title_full_unstemmed Enhancing the drug ontology with semantically-rich representations of National Drug Codes and RxNorm unique concept identifiers
title_short Enhancing the drug ontology with semantically-rich representations of National Drug Codes and RxNorm unique concept identifiers
title_sort enhancing the drug ontology with semantically rich representations of national drug codes and rxnorm unique concept identifiers
topic Drug ontology
Ontology development
National drug codes
Rxcuis
Drug identifiers
Ontological realism
url https://doi.org/10.1186/s12859-019-3192-8
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AT williamrhogan enhancingthedrugontologywithsemanticallyrichrepresentationsofnationaldrugcodesandrxnormuniqueconceptidentifiers