Department of Social and Health Services
Division of Alcohol and Substance Abuse
The Washington State Division of Alcohol and Substance Abuse (DASA), a division of the Department of Social and Health Services, assists Washington communities in providing publicly funded treatment and prevention services to individuals and organizations. DASA manages contracts that allocate federal and state funds to county governments, other government agencies and private organizations to provide treatment and prevention services. DASA is the certifying agency for alcohol and drug treatment facilities in Washington state.

DASA needed an efficient and easily accessible web-enabled system with a high degree of security to replace their legacy system used to track state level activities and services provided to substance abuse treatment clients. Researchers wanted the capability to create a wide variety of reports from the various data they had collected in order to provide statistics on the effectiveness of substance abuse treatment programs. Federal requirements mandated the data transmission standards must comply with Federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) rules, which require written consent for all disclosures of confidential information, and that all transmissions of confidential data be protected from accidental or deliberate interception.

Starling Consulting designed and developed a dynamic Internet client tracking system by working with the customer to determine the security requirements and access levels for report usage. Target was designed to be easily maintainable yet powerful by combining a web interface with a dynamic database. We designed it to be used by vendors and state administrative staff simultaneously, allowing for different levels of access to sensitive information and access to real time data while preventing duplicate entries. We designed the system for multiple page data entry maintenance that updates the database only once per record verses once per line entry. This method is more secure and reliable than conventional approaches to data entry via the Internet and it allows for a more complete transaction which lessens mistakes in data entry. We also simplified the job of data entry by adding a data validation feedback feature, making it easier to find and navigate to data entry mistakes.

Offering over 170 reports that meet federal reporting requirements, Target is designed to provide maximum reporting flexibility and ease of use for both the end user and the web master. We included a complex set of customer defined report queries to maximize the flexibility of the data, enabling reports to filter for a maximum of thirty different data categories. We migrated more than eight years of existing data into the new system and used hardware based digital certificates in cooperation with State level security to provide the highest level of protection offered by the State of Washington.

< Vastly increases flexibility of administrators and researchers to quickly create a variety of customized and ad-hoc reports.
< Provides instant access to valuable research data from any Internet ready computer while maintaining the highest degree of security available to Washington State Agencies.
< Increases effeciency and reduces errors in data entry, tracking and reporting.

Target is highly secure, utilizing the highest level of security offered by the Washington State Department of Information Services in combination with hardware based digital certificates. Designed to meet the strictest of privacy requirements, including the most significant Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) rules, Target protects transmissions of confidential data from accidental or deliberate interception. Target is an easily maintainable web system based on a set of stored database procedures and tables. Target is comprised of a centralized SQL 7.0 database that runs on IIS 5.0, a highly secure web reporting system and user interface, and is built with tools including ASP, VB Script, Java, DHTML, XML, and XSL.