Introduction: The development of terminological systems is one of the requirements of the exchange of information in health information systems. A group of these terminological systems is drug terminology. In this study, we reviewed and introduced one of the drug terminological systems called NDF-RT's (National Drug File-Reference Terminology) and explained its applications systematically.
Method: This research has been done using two methods: a systematic review to identify studies concerning the application of NDF-RT and a non-systematic review to introduce this system. Articles were searched in Pub Med and Google Scholar databases. In the systematic review, the papers information including title, author's affiliation, year of publication, journal's name, and application of NDF-RT, were extracted and analyzed using Microsoft excel 2010.
Results: NDF-RT classification system classifies drugs based on their structure, ingredients, and their physiologic effects. In our systematic review, thirteen papers were retrieved, nine of which have evaluated NDF-RT system for usability and deployment of the system in health care environments, diagnosis and drug relationships, and accuracy of drugs classification.
Conclusion: NDF-RT drug terminology is one of the most comprehensive terminological systems for the classification of drugs which can be used for drugs information standardization in health information systems.