Introduction

This concept details the steps required to determine PCH admission/residency for a defined cohort without using personal information from the PCH system.

STEPS


1. Use the latest statistical file of admissions (it includes all previous records to date including anyone who has died prior to end of the most recent fiscal year). Note that this file does not contain any personal information such as date of birth or gender.
   
   
   • File location for fiscal year 2001/02: cpe8.pcsa0102
   
   
2. Select the specific levels of care (from variable LEVELPAD in admission records) you want to include in your definition of admission.
   
   
   • Admissions included in these files are not only to actual PCH homes, but also to other types of long-term care.
   • PCH admissions are defined by the levels of care at time of admission.
     
     
     • Levels of Care 1 to 4 represent admissions to PCH
       
     • Levels of Care 5-7 and 9 represent admissions to other LTC facilities.
       
     • Level of Care 8 is a "partial admission" to PCH home, which means the person was assessed for PCH care in a hospital and is waiting for a placement to PCH. Physically, this person is still in a hospital, but his/her "residency" fee comes from PCH funding. Individual researchers can decide whether to count these cases as admissions as well as cases for other levels of care 5-7 and 9 (see LTC dictionary definitions for these levels).
   
   
3. Merge your cohort by PHIN to the above file.
   
   
   • You will have multiple records per person that reflect everything that happened to them in PCH system re: admission/separation. (Assessment records are in a separate file now). An admission record is generated for each PCH resident every year s/he is in a PCH (for the most recent years starting in 1994); thus, each record will have a DATEPAD and a DATEPAID.
     
   • The earliest DATEPAD will give you the date of the first admission. The latest DATEPAID will give you the last day in PCH up to date. For continuing patients it is usually October 1.
     • If you are only interested if members of your cohort were in PCH at certain date, check this date for being between earliest DATEPAD and latest DATEPAID.
     • In the SAS example below, the earliest DATEPAD and the latest DATEPAID are selected for each individual in the PCH file prior to merging it to the specific cohort.

Notes & Cautions

For some projects certain PCHs (from variable LOCNPAD) might be also excluded (e.g. Mental Health facilities). If you need the location of the PCHs, Companion Care (LOCNPAD="0507") should also be excluded as its location is unknown.

There could be some social absences and possibly discharges and readmissions to the system between the earliest DATEPAD and latest DATEPAID dates. If you don't want to count social absences or time between discharge from one PCH and/or readmission to the other as time spent in PCH, make sure to check for these gaps. However, they are usually not relevant for most projects.