Biosurveillance: Observations on BioWatch Generation-3 and Other Federal Efforts

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the White House have acted to strengthen biosurveillance consistent with prior GAO recommendations made from December 2009 through October 2011.In August 2012, DHS issued a strategic plan for its National Biosurveillance Integration Center (NBIC) that officials say was written in coordination with federal partners and designed to respond to GAO’s December 2009 findings that NBIC did not have key resources to carry out its mission, in part due to collaboration issues it faced. In July 2012, the White House released the National Strategy for Biosurveillance, which describes guiding principles, core functions, and enablers for strengthening biosurveillance. In June 2010, GAO recommended a national biosurveillance strategy to provide a unifying framework for building and maintaining a national biosurveillance capability. In October 2011, GAO also recommended the strategy account for the need to leverage resources and respond to challenges while partnering with nonfederal entities. The July 2012 strategy partially responds to the issues GAO called for such a strategy to address, but does not fully address them, as discussed below. A strategic implementation plan is to be published within 120 days of strategy issuance (October 2012), and may align the strategy more fully with the array of issues GAO identified.