Postal Code field

Data Element (edit)
Field Name:	PostalCode
CCMDB Label:	Postal Code
CCMDB tab:	Dispo
Table:	L_Log table
Data type:	string
Length:	6
Program:	Med and CC
Created/Raw:	Raw
Start Date:	2012-01-01
End Date:	2300-01-01
Sort Index:	33

The patient's postal code.

• SMW

Legacy implementation right in the table

• Cargo

• Categories

• Forms

The Postal_Code field can be edited in the Dispo tab. A postal code is collected for all patients admitted to a hospital within the WRHA. The postal code collected is from the address that a person permanently resides in any Province in Canada.

Collection Instruction

Enter the Postal code

• no space
• upper case letters
• example only: X0X0X0

When the postal code is not available (e.g. John or Jane Doe patient or chart doesn't have postal code) enter "N/A" or click the "N/A" button to enter it for you.

Special Cases

Homeless with proxy address

If you have a homeless person admitted who lists their address as Siloam Mission or the Salvation Army/Booth's Place, use that place's postal code as provided.

Code "couch surfers" as "N/A".

Institutionalized patients

For institutionalized patients (e.g. Prison / Jail / Correctional Institution inmates, care homes), use the institution's postal code.

Out-of-Country patients

Our cross checks would flag the format of out-of-country postal codes, so enter "N/A" for these.

International Students

Patients who are here on a student visa for 6 months or longer are eligible for health coverage under the province. see https://www.gov.mb.ca/ie/study/medical.html For these, enter as you would a regular patient.

Relationship between Province, PHIN and Postal code

When collecting Postal Code, PHIN number and Province, think about the relationship of this information when you are collecting it.

• if patient has a MB PHIN number, then Province code should be MB and the postal code should be for MB (MB postal codes start with an "R").
• if Province code is not MB then the postal code should not be a MB postal code and also, there should not be an PHIN number.

Data Use

Postal Codes are used group patients geographically for purposes such as:

• distribution of patients by MB RHAs outside of Winnipeg
• linking to Stats Canada for socioeconomic stratification of population by geographic area
• cross-checking our data's Province field for out-of-province patients

Template:CCMDB Data Integrity Checks

Implemented in Function Validate_PostalCode() and Function is_valid_postalcode

• will reject empty field
• will reject invalid postal code (ie not PC Like "[A-X]#[A-Z]#[A-Z]#")

Cross-checks of PC against Province were implemented at some point but then discontinued due to false positives. Function pc_province_match. Comments in there:

' 2016-07-25
' it was decided long ago not to check this by the steering committee because
' it gave false positives.
' 2016-11-14 emailed team to find out if we should revisit

CFE-Postal code cross check

Main office weekly data check. data vetting process. Uses query NDC_Bad_Postal_Code and table Postal_Code_Master.

table Postal_Code_Master

This is the table that postal codes get checked again. It includes the MB RHA that a postal code is affiliated with. For the MB component we imported a version provided by Marc Silva to p:Julie Mojica 2016-09-08. The country-wide component was based on an older table I think we go it from Stats Can.

Start/end Dates

Start Date: new admissions on and after January 1, 2012 End Date: None / Permanent Collection

Wikipedia Postal codes listings across Canada

Wikipedia, Postal codes in Canada

• at the top of the article shows the the first letter that a postal code starts with for a province.

Map showing first letter used in postal codes across Canada

Legacy

Data started out being collected in the tmp field until June 1, 2016. The Postal Code from tmp populated the PostalCode field of Centralized_data on Jun 22, 2016.