Importance and Need of Biometrics in Healthcare System

ABSTRACT

Online attendance system using Bio-metric is a web-based attendance system that specifically developed for small and medium Medical Colleges & Organizations. The Biometric application can manage recordings, controlling and monitoring of students/ employees presence. The purpose is to make sure that the student & staffs are punctual and do their jobs on time. Currently, in mostly colleges there is no proper marking system to monitor the presence. Where it’s working the role of its administrator is very mild and can be changed at any time so there has been always a challenge of tracking the staff and students in front of college administration. Besides, the companies still use the paper-based system to store the records of its employees and students.

HISTORY OF BIOMETRICS & FINGERPRINTS

The practice of using fingerprints as a method of identifying individuals has been in use since the late nineteenth century when Sir Francis Galton defined some of the points or characteristics from which fingerprints can be identified. These “Galton Points” are the foundation for the science of fingerprint identification, which has expanded and transitioned over the past century. Fingerprint identification began its transition to automation in the late 1960’s along with the emergence of computing technologies. With the advent of computers, a subset of the Galton Points, referred to as minutiae, has been utilized to develop automated finger print technology. In 1969, there was a major push from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to develop a system to automate its fingerprint identification process, which had quickly become overwhelming and required many man-hours for the manual process. The FBI contracted the National Bureau of Standards (NBS), now the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), to study the process of automating fingerprint classification, searching, and matching

Procedure used in Fingerprint Processing

1. Fingerprint Acquisition

At the enrolment phase, the fingerprints would be acquired such that the print of the texture of the first finger (that is the pointing finger) is obtained twice and analyzed for processing. The fingerprint samples would be stored in a Microsoft SQL Server database with the aid of an interfaced fingerprint reader/scanner. The fingerprints are then to be saved inside a database to cater for subsequent need for the various fingerprint analysis during matching.

2. Fingerprint Feature Extraction

In any fingerprint image, there are dark lines which are called ridges, whereas the spaces in between those dark lines are called valleys. Ridges and valleys often run in parallel but there are two things that happen to any print. It is either, the ridges and the valleys terminate or they bifurcate. Termination of a fingerprint is simply the situation in which a particular ridge ends abruptly while bifurcation is the situation by which the line splits into two. In the analysis of the fingerprint images during matching (authentication), the pattern of the fingerprint exhibits one or more regions where the ridge lines assume distinctive shapes; which are: loop, delta and whorl. If the fingerprint scan matches any one stored in the database at the enrolment phase, the staff with the fingerprint will be updated as present for the lecture.

3. Minutiae Extraction

Each fingerprint images in the database after enrolment will be processed in order to extract a unique feature called minutiae. It is this unique feature that will be compared at the (authentication) matching phase. This requires the fingerprint grey-scale image to be converted into a binary image. The binary images obtained by the process are submitted to a thinning stage which allows for the ridge line thickness to be reduced to one pixel. Finally, a simple image scans allows the detection of pixels that correspond to minutiae through the pixel-wise computation of crossing number.

WHY BIOMETRICS?

The term biometrics comes from the Greek words bios, meaning life, and metrics, meaning measure. Biometrics can be defined as measurable physiological and/or behavioral characteristics that can be utilized to verify the identity of an individual, and include fingerprint verification, hand geometry, retinal scanning, iris scanning, facial recognition and signature verification. Biometric authentication is considered the automatic identification, or identity verification, of an individual using either a biological feature they possess physiological characteristic like a fingerprint or something they do behavior characteristic, like a signature. In practice, the process of identification and authentication is the ability to verify and confirm an identity. It is accomplished by using any one or a combination of the following three traditional identification techniques: something you possess; something you know; or something you are.

Something you possess: Often referred to as a token and can be produced from a multitude of different physical objects. There are two basic types of tokens in use today: manual and automated. If a token is described as manual it means that the identification process requires some form of human intervention; in other words, a person will make the final decision of whether an identity is approved or not. Good examples of manual tokens are paper ID documents and passports. Automated tokens, on the other hand, do not involve human intervention in the identification process, but rather the identity is verified by a system/computer such as magnetic-stripe cards, memory cards, or smart cards.

Something you know: The knowledge should not be commonly held, but secret. Examples of regularly used secrets are passwords, pass-phrases, and personal identification numbers PINs.

Something you are: Recognizing an entity through what "they are" requires measuring one or more of their biological features. Biological features can be either physiological characteristics like fingerprints or behavioral traits like an individual's signature.

The following table outlines a comparison between passwords vs. tokens vs. biometrics.

Biometric characteristics can be separated into two main categories.

Physiological characteristics: Physiological characteristics are related to the shape of the body. The trait that has been used the longest, for over one hundred years, are fingerprints; other examples are face recognition, hand geometry and iris recognition.

Behavioral characteristics: Behavioral characteristics are related to the behavior of a person. The first characteristic to be used that is still widely used today is the signature.

The following table briefly compares the 5 biometrics according to 7 parameters.

Health Informatics & Ethics to use the Biomedical Tool

Biomedical ethics address issues similar as sequestration and confidentiality, conflicts of interest, detriment to cases and the nature of the connections between the croaker and the case which need to be balanced between implicit detriment and benefits of use of IT.

Biometric identification system

1. Background

Attendance tracking using biometric device is software developed for maintaining the attendance of the Student/ Employees on the daily basis in the collage. Here the admin staffs, who are handling the job, will be responsible to mark the attendance of the employee. Each staff will be given with a separate username and password based on their role they handle. An accurate report based on the students/ employee attendance is generated. This system will also help in calculating salary criteria of an employee. Report of the employee’s attendance on weekly and monthly basis is generated.

2. Other features

• Reduced operational time.

• Increased accuracy and reliability.

• Increased operational efficiency.

• Data security.

3. This project is used by types of user

• Admin staff.

• Employees.

• Coordinators.

• Head of department.

• Dean.

Everyone can access the system by providing there valid ID and Password. They can access modules such as viewing their own profile, employee’s profiles, and view their time of entering college, attendance of employee, reports, and events.

Tools used & Software Hardware Requirements

ZK4500 Fingerprint Scanner

1. Features

ZK4500 is a stable and excellent fingerprint scanner. The device can capture fingerprint image and upload to the PC by USB interface. It supports Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/7/10 (32/64bit) and Linux OS. SDK is also provided. The developer can integrate the hardware into their own system. This device is widely used in social insurance, public security, time attendance, fingerprint encryption, embedded system and other fields of application.

2. Functions

• High-performance, maintenance-free optical fingerprint sensor.
• Readily accessible for any finger
• High quality industrial-class ABS plastic material with scratchproof texture surface treatment
• High speed USB interface
• LED indicates the status of the device

Software Requirements

How to implement this system?

We can understand this by the given diagram

RESULTS & DISCUSSIONS

This research work has several advantages when compared with the conventional manual attendance control system. Some of its benefits are highlighted below

1. Improved security: the developed software work was able to guide against unauthorized person gaining access to manipulate the system or impersonate.
2. Improves employee’s performance: Implementation of this software system in an institution will curb tardiness of lecturer’s to the lecture rooms and make them regular. This will equally help to improve the performance of the students and lecturers.
3. Fast and easy retrieval of data: The system enhances fast retrieval of attendance data. The report can be generated at any point in time. It reduces loss of data since all data are saved in a database.
4. Easy monitoring: Staff attendance is monitored at a single point. The administrator does not need to go about staff data or attendance sheet; at a click of a button, all data will be made available.
5. Reduce paper work: Conventional method of taking attendance involves the use of several papers which makes it more cumbersome. The automated system reduces paper work and makes the attendance system less cumbersome.
6. Avoidance of Impersonation: the conventional method gives room for impersonation whereby a lecturer takes attendance for another lecturer. The automated process with the aid of fingerprint biometrics does not give room for impersonation. Once enrolled, it can’t be verified by another person.

System Maintenance

The system developed will stand the test of time if properly maintained. The most important maintenance is to make sure that the fingerprint scanner is kept in a very good condition; its USB cable must be kept well. The OS on the computer should be upgraded as at when due to avoid system crash. In case the school wants to use the developed system on the school’s network, network maintenance will be very important to enhance communication between the networked computers; servers should be physically repaired or replaced when damaged, software for server too should be consistently updated. All these maintenance practices should be done on a regular or semi-regular schedule, often during non-peak usage hours, and keep servers running smoothly.