Difference between revisions of "CryptoPointers"

Latest revision as of 13:56, 1 April 2012

Here is another one, in the BCMA MEDICATION LOG File:

53.79,.11     ORDER REFERENCE NUMBER .1;1 FREE TEXT (Required)

              INPUT TRANSFORM:  K:$L(X)>15!($L(X)<1)!'(X?.N1"U"!
(X?.N1"V")!(X?.N1"P")) X
              LAST EDITED:      MAY 9,2001
              HELP-[[PROMPT~|Prompt]]
:      Answer must be 1-15 characters in
length.
              DESCRIPTION:
                                Contains the IEN to the actual order
in PHARMACY PATIENT (#55) followed by a U for Unit Dose or V for IV

              [[RECORD~|Record]] INDEXES:   AORDX (#47), AUID (#147)

I call this a "crypto-pointer to the ORDER file, File 100. I recently dealt with this by creating a COMPUTED POINTER to File 100, using this field. Details on request.

BTW, a quick search of FOIA VistA finds exactly one computed pointer, field 3.3 of File 798, pointing to File 4.

Of course the classic example is in the lab data file where a combination of PARENT FILE (.02) and NAME (,03) are used as a pseudo variable pointer to either the patient file (2) or referral patient file (67).

And here is another one in the Domain file:

4.21,1.3        PHYSICAL LINK / DEVICE 0;5 FREE TEXT

                INPUT TRANSFORM:K:$L(X)>30!($L(X)<1) X I $D(X) S
%ZIS="NQRS",IO
                                P=X D ^%ZIS K:POP X S:$D(X) X=ION W:$D(X) "
Sto
                                red internally as ",X D ^%ZISC S IOP="HOME"
D ^
                                %ZIS K IOP,%ZIS
                LAST EDITED:    MAR 12, 1993
                HELP-[[PROMPT~|Prompt]]:    Answer must be 3-30 characters in length.
                DESCRIPTION:    The physical link is the channel that the
                                transmission will take place on.  This field
is
                                always a free text pointer to the device
file.
                                See field 17 / Physical Link Device for more
                                information.

Just as a Historical point about the Lab Data file, that was Lab's solution for a variable pointer before at least 1986. Long before there was such a field type within FM.

Chris Edkins