Glossary of Terms

The biometric identifier is a unique patient identifier generated by imaging the patient’s finger. This unique ID is assigned to each patient when the patient is first enrolled in D-ATM. See also "D-ATM Patient ID" and "enrollment identifier".

The Committee of Methadone Program Administrators, Inc. of New York State is a not-for-profit coalition representing the State's methadone treatment providers and other interested organizations and individuals. COMPA's members serve more than 43,000 opiate addicted persons and their families in 126 licensed methadone treatment facilities throughout the State.

http://www.compa-ny.org/

The Center for Substance Abuse Treatment of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, promotes the quality and availability of community-based substance abuse treatment services for individuals and families who need them.

http://csat.samhsa.gov/

The Digital Access to Medication project entails development and implementation of a pilot system to support the retrieval of limited patient dosage information in the event of both major disasters and more common disruptions in service, for instance, due to snowstorms, power failures, and other localized events.

The pilot system uses a biometric device, such as a finger scanner, to store recent dosage information to a centralized database. If a patient needs to seek treatment at a program other than the one where he or she is normally enrolled, the "guest" OTP will be able to verify that the person is a patient and then retrieve a report on the patient’s medicine order and dosage simply by scanning the patient’s finger.

The current project involves development of the necessary infrastructure, followed by a pilot test of D-ATM with 50 to 60 OTPs to determine the system’s effectiveness in supporting OTPs disaster preparedness and recovery activities for any discontinuity in service. Following the pilot, the system will be reviewed to determine its effectiveness and ability to support a national implementation.

D-ATM is in development under the sponsorship of CSAT/SAMHSA.

The Department of Health and Human Services is the United States government's principal agency for protecting the health of all Americans and providing essential human services, especially for those who are least able to help themselves.

http://www.hhs.gov/

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act was signed into law on August 21, 1996. To improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the healthcare system, HIPAA included a series of "administrative simplification" provisions that required HHS to adopt national standards for electronic healthcare transactions. The law also requires the adoption of security and privacy standards to protect personal health information.

Minutiae is a term used to describe the points ("plot points") at which the ridges seen on a finger scan branch or end.

Finger scan recognition is a technology by which a user places his or her finger on a small glass plate at which point the system electronically captures a high-resolution optical image of the finger scan, typically using a charge-coupled-device camera.

The system then converts the image into a template containing a mathematical representation based on features of the image such as the minutiae.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration is the Federal agency that works to improve the quality and availability of substance abuse prevention, addiction treatment, and mental health services.

http://www.samhsa.gov/