The Dictionary of Medicines and Devices (DM+D) is a dataset of all the medicines and devices used in the UK National Health Service (NHS). It is maintained by the NHS Business Services Authority and NHS Digital. DM+D data is provided in XML format under an Open Government Licence.
This repository includes a Python script for parsing and cross-referencing two DM+D XML files in order to link Actual Medicinal Product Pack (AMPP) product data with Global Trade Identification Numbers (GTIN) in JSON format. This allows drug data to be found with a GTIN, which is available on a product barcode.
The other part of this repository is a Python web app (using the Bottle framework) that provides an API interface to a MongoDB database containing the JSON data.
This API is running on a Heroku dyno at Ampoule Drug Data API. The data in the MongoDB database is updated periodically as DM+D updates are released.
Ampoule is an iOS app that helps healthcare professionals to track an inventory of medical drugs. I developed this way of adapting DM+D data and incorporating it into an API to enable barcode scanning in the app, which will allow more rapid data entry by users.
In the UK, all medical product packs will have an EAN13 barcode, which provides the GTIN. Many packs will also have a 2D data matrix code, which usually encodes the GTIN as well as batch number and expiry date.
You can give feedback, suggestions or report bugs here on GitHub or email info@ampoule.io.