[Gnumed-devel] External id type attributes, data consistency and validation

[Jim Busser]

I am conscious of several aspects of data input that are

- tedious to achieve consistently, and

- at risk of causing patients' records to be dropped from queries

These are inconsistencies in

- whether or not spaces are required in an identifier (or whether these have 
been customarily used for improved visual formatting)

- whether or not upper case characters are entered

- whether or not leading zeros are significant

Examples:

        health identifier is 10 digits, beginning with a 9
        e.g. 9123456780
        customarily displayed as:
                9123 456 780

                (easier to read out, say over the phone)

        however 9123456780 does not equal 9123 456 780


        postal code - Canadian
        format is A9A 9A9 (A+ upper case alpha, 9 = numeric)
        displayed with a space but sometimes inputted without one
        but nevertheless has computational impacts
        sometimes failing to be upper case shifted from the keyboard
        RegEx pattern suggested here
                
http://www.forta.com/blog/index.cfm?mode=entry&entry=A61BA033-3048-80A9-EFF8935E41AB9FE2


        hospital chart or medical record number

                00006457

                we say '6457'

                but when asking a lab result over the phone, if you do not say

                        oh oh oh oh 6 4 5 7

                the hospital will tell you there is no result for chart number 
6457

Question:

- do we provide 4 additional columns

        .force_upper boolean default null
        .remove_all_spaces boolean default null
        .zero_fill_to_length default null
        .modulus numeric default null
        
permitting triggers, so that where a value gets inputted for a patient, the 
trigger will ON INSERT MODIFY take care of the above ?

-- Jim