PHIN field

The PHIN field should be used for the patient's personal health information number (PHIN). The PHIN needs to be entered for all Manitoba patients, and must not be entered for out-of-province patients.

Special Cases

There are scenarios where a PHIN will not be available for a Manitoba patient, including but not limited to

• immigrants on visas
• some prison inmates

If a PHIN is not available, "999999999" should be used and Pagasa should be notified so she knows this is legitimate.

Data Integrity

For patients with Province = MB, the PHIN has to be > 100000000 and < 999999999, i.e. it has to have 9 digits For out-of-province patients, the PHIN must be entered as 0. (PHINs entered as 0 will be replaced by pseudo-PHINs).

Pseudo-PHIN

Since the PHIN is used as a unique identifier for patients to detect repeat and continuous visits, a "pseudo-PHIN" is assigned for patients who don't have a PHIN. At this point, pseudo-PHINS are assigned manually by Pagasa based on a series she maintains.