May 1, 2008

README: RxNorm 05/01/2008 Full Update Release
===================================================

-----------------------------------------------------------------
This Full release contains data that is consistent with the 
2008AA version of the UMLS.   
-----------------------------------------------------------------

This release contains updates to the following eight sources:

GS - 04/08/2008 (Gold Standard Alchemy)
MDDB - 04/02/2008 (Master Drug Data Base. Medi-Span, a division of Wolters Kluwer Health) 
MMSL - 04/01/2008 (Multum MediSource Lexicon) 
MMX - 03/31/2008  (Micromedex DRUGDEX)
MTHFDA - 04/04/2008 (FDA National Drug Code Directory)
MTHSPL - 04/21/2008 (FDA Structured Product Labels) 
NDDF - 04/04/2008 (First DataBank NDDF Plus Source Vocabulary)
VANDF - 03/10/2008 (Veterans Health Administration National Drug File)

This release does not contain updates to the following source:

SNOMED CT - 01/31/2008 (SNOMED Clinical Terms (drug information). SNOMED International)


For full details, please refer to the RxNorm documentation at 
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/research/umls/rxnorm/docs/index.html.

In addition, this release contains database control files and SQL
commands for use in the automation of the loading process of
these files into an Oracle RDBMS.
 
RxNorm release data files are available by download from 
the UMLS Knowledge Source Server (UMLSKS) at:

  http://umlsks.nlm.nih.gov

Use the "RxNorm Files" link, under the "Downloads" category on
the UMLSKS home page.

This link will take you to a page for downloading the latest files: 
RxNorm_full_05012008.zip

This RxNorm update is available only through the UMLSKS server.  Once
downloaded, it must be unzipped in order to access the files.

HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE RECOMMENDATIONS
-------------------------------------
- Supported operating systems:
	Windows: XP, 2000, NT
	Linux
	Solaris: Solaris 8 and 9 
        Macintosh OS 9 or OS 10 

- Hardware Requirements

  - A MINIMUM 489 MB of free hard disk space (To accomodate ZIP files and 
	unzipped contents).  


CONTENTS OF THE ZIP FILE
-------------------------

The ZIP formatted file is 54,461,146 bytes and contains the 
following 20 files and 2 directories:

	Readme_Full_05012008.txt	3,276		bytes

rrf directory:

	RXNCONSO.RRF			81,482,752	bytes
	RXNDOC.RRF			149,849		bytes
	RXNREL.RRF			83,938,643	bytes
	RXNSAB.RRF			5,828		bytes		
        RXNSAT.RRF			244,049,227	bytes 
	RXNSTY.RRF			11,921,010	bytes
	RXNATOMARCHIVE.RRF		23,101,797	bytes
	RXNCUICHANGES.RRF		382,383		bytes

scripts directory:

	RXNATOMARCHIVE.ctl		564		bytes
	RXNCONSO.ctl			512		bytes
	RXNCUICHANGES.ctl		346		bytes
	RXNDOC.ctl			248		bytes
	RXNREL.ctl			472		bytes
	RXNSAB.ctl			674		bytes	
	RXNSAT.ctl			376		bytes
	RXNSTY.ctl			267		bytes
	RxNormDDL.sql			3,125		bytes
	rxn_index.sql			660		bytes
	populate_oracle_rxn_db.bat	1,089		bytes
	
	
Additional NOTES:
-----------------

- Most RxNorm users will need applications and data management
  systems such as an RDBMS for storage and retrieval.

- The RxNorm release files contain UTF-8 Unicode encoded data.

- Refer to the RxNorm release documentation at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/research/umls/rxnorm/docs/index.html for information on the contents of the RxNorm Release Files