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Food (Restaurant) Inspection Project Fact Sheet

DSI Delivered The First Handheld Restaurant Inspection Computer Application In The Us To The City Of New York Department Of Health

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BackgroundThe DOH is responsible for preventing and reducing the incidence of illness and injury caused by environmental health hazards. Within Environmental Health Services, the Bureau of Inspections is responsible for conducting inspections of various establishments and facilities that are licensed and regulated by the Department. The largest group of licensed establishments and facilities is in the food-service sector. These inspections include routine inspections, inspections in response to complaints, and inspections prior to the issuance of permits.During inspections, these Sanitarians spend most of their time evaluating food workers' practices including the manner in which they receive and store foods, how they process foods, and the temperatures at which they cook, hold, and reheat foods. Working closely with the inspectors who perform inspections of food service establishments, an application was designed and implemented by DSI to run on Fujitsu handheld computers to be utilized during these inspections.The objective of the application was to create a standardized, focused approach to the inspection, develop standardized wording for violations of all relevant health code sections through the selection of words from drop-down menus, and to provide a rapid method for recording information relative to the inspection. The software application was developed in Visual Basic Version 6.0 with data stored in an Oracle Lite database residing both on the handheld units and the middle-tier central database server. The operating system for the handheld unit is MS Windows 2000.

The Challenges

monitored by the Office of the Inspector General.. Able to operate the application in the field without continuous connection to the central database.. Schedule the more than one hundred inspectors conducting weekly field inspections with the flexibility to change schedules and assign new inspections on demand.. Two-way synchronization of data between the handheld computer databases and central database.. User-friendly screens on a one-quarter-sized screen.. Minimize typing by using "pick lists" to construct the 210 possible violations from 100 violation templates.. Be able to issue signed Notices of

Violation (NOV) before leaving the restaurant premises.. Provide uniform, incontrovertible

* 1st mobile food inspection in the US * Field Inspection * Follows FDA inspection guidelines * Violations printed and signed on site * Discourages bribes and corruption * Integrates with agency systems

FOOD INSPECTION AT A GLANCE. To build a new handheld computer system replacing paper-based inspections.. Build a software application on rapidly evolving hardware.. Build data synchronization with a non-relational Focus database.. Ability to download 2 weeks of field inspections and route assignments from central office LAN.

. Capture signatures of inspector and food establishment owner and upload to central database.. Ease of maintenance and modification of City inspection violation regulations.. Obtain permit numbers from different city agencies and provide interfaces to the agencies

Project objectives. Introduce a handheld computer inspection system that supports the printing of violations on site.. Reduce bribery and corruption as

Inspection Calendar

Violation "pick list"

Inspection Assignment

57 West 38 Street 12 Floor New York, NY 10018 TEL:212-997-2000 Fax:212-997-4297

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Food (Restaurant) Inspection Project Fact Sheet

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evidence of violation at Administrative Tribunal hearings.

Project Benefits. Improved inspection efficiency and productivity, increasing City revenues from fines.. Reductions in human error during inspections.. Corruption control and prevention. . Faced with greater frequency and accuracy of inspections, restaurant owners improve their practices.. Improved data quality.

Business highlights. Reduced Public Health Hazards.. Complies with the New York City Health Code, the New York State Sanitary Code and other applicable regulations related to food service and administered by the Department of Health.. Aids in regulating food establishments in the maintenance of food service operations and cleanliness.. Automated field inspection procedures prevent inspection corruption.. Inspection results and Notices of Violation can not be modified and overridden.. Once the data from the handheld device has moved to the middle-tier database, route information for each inspector to follow beginning in the next week is stored in the device. . Each handheld device contains information that is shared with every other device including the violation templates and weekly public alerts.. Each handheld device also holds information that is unique to it. This exclusive information includes technical information, information about establishments, and inspection information.

. Hand held computer application with built-in business intelligence.. Sophisticated business logic on a handheld computer with a relational database.. A Critical Control Points Center to

navigate to different inspection subject areas such as Receiving, Cooking, processing, cooling, reheating, etc.. Dynamic construct of violation clauses by using a Pick List to aid the inspector to complete violations.. Synchronization of data between the central Oracle database and the Oracle Lite database residing on handheld computers.. Capture signatures on documents, transfer and store signature images in the database.. Ensure System Security since handheld devices containing both application code and data will spend the majority of the time outside of the traditional secured work site.. To prevent data tempering, ensure that data cannot be added, altered, or deleted with malicious intent.. Ensure the data in the hand-help databases is not only secured in the application at the database interfaces, but we will use encryption native to the databases to prevent a stolen device from being opened and read.. Application database contains rule-based information that is privileged to the inspection unit to provide the best business practices

Client and business unitsNew York City Department of Health & Mental HygieneEnvironmental Health ServicesBureau of Food Safety & Community Sanitation

FundingNYC DOHMH

Project durationPhase I: 7/1998 - 6/1999Phase II: 7/1999 - 12/2001

ReferencesEdward Carubis Associate Commissioner, Management Information Services (212) 788-5180

Technology platformsServer OS: Windows NT, 2000Client OS: Windows platform client/Server base applicationDatabase: Oracle and Oracle Lite Languages: Visual Basic, CHandheld computer: Fujitsu Stylistic Tablet PC with Pentex Pocket Jet printer

Related government regulationsNew York City Health Code for permit suspension, revocation and the inspection process.

DSI contactinfo@dsii.net (212) 997-2000

Signature Capture on Handheld Computer

Replication Program

Technology highlights

57 West 38 Street 12 Floor New York, NY 10018 TEL:212-997-2000 Fax:212-997-4297