Introduction

Conference Objective: The NDIA Biosurveillance Conference will provide a forum for addressing the many known shortfalls and inadequacies, in the biosurveillance community, preventing us from developing, implementing, and maintaining a national biosurveillance strategy.

Attendees will be provided the opportunity to share ideas and explore the vital next steps to achieve the overall goal of standardizing and integrating the biosurveillance community, thus, helping us prepare for and protect against harmful biological agents in the environment.

In a time where strengthening our defenses in the biological arena is of national priority, it’s more important than ever to bring government, industry, academia, and first responders together, on one stage, in order to “address the shortfalls and fill in the gaps” in our national biosurveillance strategy.

Current Shortfalls/Inadequacies of a National Strategy:

• Inability of state and local biosurveillance programs to effectively collaborate and communicate – lack of information, data, and resource sharing, creating duplicative missions
• No clear federal strategy for properly developing, implementing, and maintaining the biosurveillance systems in the U.S.
• Lack of urgency for a national biosurveillance strategy and the appropriate funding and investments required
• Interoperability between public health and healthcare institutions
• Absence of agreement on what data and information is important and what constitutes “actionable” biosurveillance information

Exploring the Next Steps:

• Acknowledging the shortfalls listed above and determining why the United States is unable to execute on these requirements
• Defining clear and definitive roles and responsibilities of local, state, and federal agencies, at each level, as it relates to humans, animals, food, and environmental surveillance
• Prioritizing and allocating investments based on clearly defined federal missions and goals
•  Taking a proactive approach to biosurveillance, instead of reactive (i.e. Developing effective systems and procedures now, as opposed to waiting until we have a pandemic, and then having to take a ‘reactive’ stance)