National Formulary of India (NFI)

The need of a national level drug database has been recognized as a priority by the government in recent times. Even though it has gained government's attention it will take some time for a national level Drug Index to be available. Hence, we recommend the use of National Formulary of India (NFI) as a standard drug database. NFI has been adopted from World Health Organization (WHO) Model Formulary. For the promotion of rational use of drugs, the Indian Pharmacopiea Commision publishes National Formulary of India (NFI) at regular time intervals. The Formulary enlists the generic drugs, their classification, dosage, availability, indications, contradictions,precautions. To facilitate the use of NFI, the branded drugs can be mapped against the specific generic drugs or generic drug combinations and use relevant MDDS data elements and Code directories to prescribe their usage in a standardized format. 

• CSV Format NFI: 
  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vJUIWg971MIVreMrbBhZ3cQ--IpL_bG0/view?usp=sharing
• PDF Format NFI: 
  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xJK9X1rHnbdloHTvpQUH92w4reMOGZFd/view?usp=sharing
• PDF Format NFI Update: 
  https://drive.google.com/file/d/11V8XjQRLfqjN2PoiRzorCtrdrcOdIlsH/view?usp=sharing

The document also consists of a proposed Drug Index template beyond the NFI. Since, the availability of a standardized drug database is of utmost priority in the present scenario. The structure of the template is largely based on MDDS with some added custom fields. The template consists of the following fields. 

Drug Classification
Drug Unique Code
Generic Drug Code
Generic Drug Name
Brand Drug Code
Brand Drug Name
Manufacturer
Drug Form
Strength Value
Drug Frequency
Route of administration
Drug Restriction (Max Dosage)
Drug Drug Interaction
Alternate Drug (generic drug)
Medication package type

Note: NFI is a list of Drug Generic Names only. It is left to the users, vendors and the industry to get together and populate the Drug Brands etc. at the time of implementation and/or based on the Physician preferences.

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