snomed description

snomed_desc

clinical

Updated 5/15/2026

Definition

The textual explanation for a systematized nomenclature of medicine code. Used to display and describe the snomed in a human-readable format. This field is commonly used in electronic health records (EHR), healthcare information systems (HIS), and clinical data warehouses for snomed management and reporting.

Standard Abbreviation

snomed_desc

Database Usage

-- Example column naming
CREATE TABLE claims (
  clm_id VARCHAR(50),
  snomed_desc VARCHAR(255),  -- snomed description (max 255 chars)
  ...
);

-- Example in SELECT
SELECT
  clm_id,
  snomed_desc as snomed_description
FROM claims;

Common uses in healthcare data

Risk stratification and population health analytics
CMS-HCC risk adjustment and RAF score calculation
Quality measure attribution and HEDIS reporting
Clinical data warehouse schema design
Value-based care contract performance tracking

Example database column name

ISO-11179 snake_case standard

-- Recommended column name
snomed_desc

-- Example DDL
CREATE TABLE healthcare_data (
  record_id   VARCHAR(50)   NOT NULL,
  snomed_desc  VARCHAR(255),  -- snomed description (max 255 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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