MedlinePlus Drug Info Skill

Search MedlinePlus drug / health-topic pages. Auto-detects input type:

Input Pattern	Detected As	Example	Endpoint Used
0069-3060-30	NDC code	NDC → drug page	Connect (NDC)
637188 (5-7 digits)	RxCUI	RxNorm concept	Connect (RxCUI)
E11.9, J45.20	ICD-10-CM	Diagnosis code → topic	Connect (ICD-10)
anything else	free text	metformin, aspirin	Connect (name) + wsearch

Both APIs are free, require no API key, and are rate-limited to 85 req/min.

API

Function	Input	Returns
search(query, max_results=10)	single entity string	dict with connect_results, wsearch_results
search_batch(queries, max_results=10)	list of entity strings	dict[str, dict]
summarize(result)	one search() result dict	compact text for LLM
to_json(result)	one search() result dict	list[dict] flat records

Result dict structure

{
    "query": "metformin",
    "input_type": "text",          # ndc | rxcui | icd10 | text
    "connect_results": [           # from MedlinePlus Connect
        {"title": "...", "url": "...", "summary": "...", "source": "..."},
    ],
    "wsearch_results": [           # from keyword web service
        {"title": "...", "url": "...", "snippet": "...", "rank": "..."},
    ],
    "errors": [],
}

Usage

See if __name__ == "__main__" block in 57_MEDLINEPLUS_DRUG_INFO.py for runnable examples covering: drug name, RxCUI, NDC, ICD-10, batch search, summarize, and JSON output.

Key Fields

Field	Source	Description
title	Connect / wsearch	MedlinePlus page title
url	Connect / wsearch	Direct link to MedlinePlus page
summary	Connect	HTML-stripped page summary (≤400 chars)
snippet	wsearch	Keyword-in-context excerpt (≤300 chars)
source	Connect	Content attribution (e.g., AHFS, ASHP)
rank	wsearch	Relevance rank returned by NLM

Data Source

• Provider: U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM)
• Web Service: https://wsearch.nlm.nih.gov/ws/query (XML, keyword search)
• Connect API: https://connect.medlineplus.gov/service (JSON, code-based)
• Rate limit: 85 requests / minute / IP
• Update frequency: daily (Tue–Sat)
• License: Public domain (U.S. Government work); attribution to MedlinePlus.gov requested