Intended Use of the Canadian Clinical Drug Data Set

Although the focus of the content is to support e-prescribing in Canada, it is recognized that the Canadian Clinical Drug Data Set (or parts of it) will support other use cases such as medication records, medication reconciliation and analytics.  In most cases, the Canadian Clinical Drug Data Set will be used as an interchange terminology[1].  It will have the capacity to be used by knowledge base vendors, clinicians, researchers, statistical users, government agencies, healthcare organisations and consumers.

Clinical systems will continue to use their existing drug terminology (often a combination of Health Canada Drug Identification Number (DIN) or Natural Product Number (NPN) and proprietary terminology e.g. First Databank (FDB), Vigilance Santé, Cerner Multum, DrugBank) and existing user interfaces.  The knowledge base vendors (e.g. First Databank (FDB), Vigilance Santé and Cerner Multum, DrugBank) will include a mapping between their proprietary codes and the Canadian Clinical Drug Data Set in their products, thus enabling the interoperability of medicinal product names/descriptions.

When these systems share drug information, e.g. an e-prescription, they will share either:

  • the Canadian Clinical Drug Data Set MP code (for manufactured products) or
  • the Canadian Clinical Drug Data Set NTP code (as a generic, non-manufacturer-specific drug product) or
  • the Canadian Clinical Drug Data Set Device-NTP code (non-manufacturer-specific device product) or
  • the Canadian Clinical Drug Data Set TM code.  If the TM is shared in a e-prescribe message additional information such as the strength, dosage form and possibly the route of administration must be sent (each in separate fields in their system and in the message); this is in contrast to selecting a more fully defined product (as the NTP provides).

Relationship between the Health Canada Drug Product Database (DPD) and Canadian Clinical Drug Data Set

The Canadian Clinical Drug Data Set will not replace the Health Canada Drug Product Database (DPD), but it will be published in addition to the DPD. 

The purpose of the DPD is to provide the product specific information made available by the federal regulator of therapeutic drugs (Health Canada) for products approved for use in Canada. The DPD is managed by Health Canada and includes human pharmaceutical and biological drugs, veterinary drugs, radiopharmaceutical drugs and disinfectant products.

The purpose of the Canadian Clinical Drug Data Set is to provide a consistent representation of medications and medical devices including the identification and naming for use in digital health solutions. 

The DPD provides source data for the Canadian Clinical Drug Data Set.  The content in the DPD will not be the same as the Canadian Clinical Drug Data Set.  Each set of files have their own policy and editorial guidelines that make the content “fit for purpose”. 

Access to the Canadian Clinical Drug Data Set

Health Canada will be the owner of the product with the responsibility for publication and ongoing maintenance.  The initial target is to publish the content monthly. 

The Canadian Clinical Drug Data Set will be accessible via the Infoway Gateway.  The Canadian Clinical Drug Data Set will also be released at some point in the future through the data.gc.ca portal: http://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/bf55e42a-63cb-4556-bfd8-44f26e5a36fe

[1]  An interchange terminology is one that is primarily designed to be used inside systems to support the sharing of meaning when systems communicate between each other.  An interchange terminology is often only used to provide mappings.  This is in contrast to an interface terminology whose purpose is to support clinicians’ entry of patient-related information into systems, and to facilitate display of computer-stored patient information to clinician users as simple human-readable text.


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