Drug tests for college athletes tracked via handhelds

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February 13, 2006 (Computerworld) -- When it comes to accurate drug testing of college athletes, the National Center for Drug Free Sport Inc. relies on handheld computers instead of paper forms to track data on 25,000 tests a year.
Use of handhelds at track meets and other National Collegiate Athletic Association events started in 2002, replacing paper forms used to record testing information, said Frank Uryasz, president of Kansas City, Mo.-based Drug Free Sport, in a recent interview.
Last year, Drug Free Sport upgraded to more durable handhelds that it believes won't become obsolete as soon as many consumer-grade handhelds, Uryasz said.
The more durable handheld is the Dolphin 7900, a 17-oz. device from Hand Held Products Inc. in Skaneateles Falls, N.Y., which is equipped to capture an athlete's digital signature and to scan bar codes affixed to test sample containers.

The National Center for Drug Free Sport uses Dolphin 7900 durable handhelds from Hand Held Products Inc. to track drug tests of college athletes.

The Dolphin, which starts at $2,500, is loaded with SCAN II software from Technology Solutions Group Inc. in Lenexa, Kan., an integrator and partner with Hand Held Products. The software is loaded with athletes' names and other data before an event and supplemented with keypad and scanned bar-code input at the sampling site, usually in the stadium. Testing of the samples is handled by independent laboratories, with athletes' names and other information kept separate.
In the future, Uryasz said, Drug Free Sport plans to use the Dolphin's image capture ability to take a photo of the athlete to ensure further legitimacy of the tests.
With paper forms, Drug Free Sport found that "the potential for error was fairly high," Uryasz said, possibly with an error rate of up to 10%. "It was fairly simple with paper to get a signature and then get the wrong date or to transpose a number in handwriting, which can cause a positive drug test to be thrown out," he said.
Handheld collections have "virtually eliminated errors," he said. With about 40 collection crews and 25,000 tests a year, the recording of data and testing are also more efficient, down to about 10 minutes per athlete, he said.
Drug Free Sport upgraded to Dolphins after TSG did an assessment in 2004. It had been using a handheld from Palm Inc. upgraded with a bar code scanner from Symbol Inc. TSG found that the development platform used for the prior application would no longer be available, making upgrades limited, said Michael Koos, president of TSG.
TSG and Drug Free Sport assessed a number of replacement devices, including tablet PCs, small laptops, smart phones and several rugged handhelds from other device makers, including Symbol. Both companies liked the Dolphin because all the applications were self-contained, including the scanner, and because there wouldn't be compatibility worries with the Windows Mobile 2003 operating system and the .Net compact development framework.
Uryasz said the Dolphin has proved to be the right size, since it is larger than many pocket handhelds and can easily be used by people with larger hands. "For a 300-pound lineman getting a test, it's better than a little Palm device and you feel [this Dolphin] isn't going to get crushed," he said.
The total capital and integration cost for 60 devices was about $250,000, Koos said.
Much of the data collected and stored on the device stays there until a testing crew member can transmit it to a central database, usually via an analog phone modem, Koos said. Because many of the locations for gathering samples are in the basements of concrete stadiums, it is hard to find a good cellular signal to transmit the data.
"The communications portion of the project is a huge challenge," Koos said, although Drug Free Sport is committed to using internal radios to transmit data whenever possible.
Because of privacy and accuracy concerns, security "is a big issue, obviously," Koos added, and Drug Free Sport has never had a security breach. The devices provide several levels of password protection and rely on data encryption, he said.
Uryasz said his crews also hope to begin using voice functions with the handhelds, so that members of testing crews at large venues can be in constant communication with one another.

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