Re: [Gnumed-devel] Demographics schema - urb postcode not null

[Karsten Hilbert]

Too late for GNUmed-next.

Karsten


-------- Original-Nachricht --------
> Datum: Fri, 07 Oct 2011 16:28:24 -0700
> Von: Jim Busser <address@hidden>
> An: GNUmed list <address@hidden>
> Betreff: Re: [Gnumed-devel] Demographics schema - urb postcode not null

> it is both possible (and apparently a notorious problem in some US states)
> that you can have two towns or cities which are known by the same name,
> despite being located in the same state or province, for example as
> documented here:
> 
>       
> http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/770966-why-do-some-states-have-two-towns-same-name.html
>       http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080731135833AAfaZFR
>       http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middletown,_Pennsylvania
> 
> This means that when a person would select a street, even the combination
> of
> 
>       street name, dem.urb.name
> 
> does not (unambiguously) confer on the street any geographic meaning.
> 
> I recognize it is possible that you could force a user to choose
> 
>       which Mountain View, California or
>       which Middletown, Pennsylvania
> 
> from a list of two or more, but I continue to have a hard time with the
> idea that a city (which may have multiple postal or zip codes) has a
> 'default'. Removal of the requirement for postcode from urb would lose nothing
> presently because
> 
> 1) a city has no single (granular) location, it has a bounded area
> 2) it has potentially multiple postcodes
> 3) it is really only at the level of the street address that we achieve
> anything close to a point location. For the purposes of delivering mail or
> packages or sending an ambulance to get a patient, we need the granularity of
> what is in their address anyway and presently the client enforces the
> requirement to provide a postcode at the level of street (when inputting an
> address).
> 
> What this relaxation would then also achieve is to not have to choose
> which among
> 
>       multiple cities of same name in same state or province
> 
> because the city name is serving only as a crude grouping term, and you
> could always select patients of interest by their required-to-be-inputted
> street-level postcode or zip.
> 
> 
> If you do not want to relax the constraint on dem.urb.postcode, then how
> about to relax the 1.0 client which presently requires to input a postcode
> at the level of address / street, reasons being:
> 
> 1) the backend does not demand a street level postcode
> 2) I personally rarely send letter mail to patients, and so forcing me to
> input postcodes is extra work for minimal gain
> 3) if I later needed the postcode to send something to the patient, I
> could look it up
> 
> -- Jim
> 
> 
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