medication reference

med_ref

general

Updated 3/30/2026

Definition

The external pointer for a pharmaceutical substance. Used to identify medication reference in healthcare data systems.

Standard Abbreviation

med_ref

Database Usage

-- Example column naming
CREATE TABLE claims (
  clm_id VARCHAR(50),
  med_ref VARCHAR(50),  -- medication reference (max 50 chars)
  ...
);

-- Example in SELECT
SELECT
  clm_id,
  med_ref as medication_reference
FROM claims;

Common uses in healthcare data

Healthcare data warehouse schema design and modeling
Interoperability and cross-system data exchange
ETL pipeline development and orchestration
Master data management (MDM) programs
Analytics and business intelligence reporting

Example database column name

ISO-11179 snake_case standard

-- Recommended column name
med_ref

-- Example DDL
CREATE TABLE healthcare_data (
  record_id   VARCHAR(50)   NOT NULL,
  med_ref      VARCHAR(50),  -- medication reference (max 50 chars)
  created_dt  TIMESTAMP     NOT NULL DEFAULT NOW()
);

Column names follow the ISO-11179 naming convention: lowercase, underscore-separated, using the standard abbreviation as a prefix where applicable.

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