Citation[]
Government Accountability Office, Biosurveillance: Developing a Collaboration Strategy Is Essential to Fostering Interagency Data and Resource Sharing (GAO-10-171) (Dec. 18, 2009) (full-text).
Overview[]
The Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007 (9/11 Commission Act) directed the GAO to examine the state of federal, state, local, and tribal biosurveillance efforts and the use of resources to implement and execute biosurveillance systems. This report, which focuses on interagency data and resource sharing biosurveillance capabilities, is the first in a series of three reports designed to respond to that mandate. The other reports are:
- Biosurveillance: Efforts to Develop a National Biosurveillance Capability Need a National Strategy and a Designated Leader.
- Biosurveillance: Nonfederal Capabilities Should Be Considered in Creating a National Biosurveillance Strategy.
In this report, the GAO found that the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) National Biosurveillance Integration Center, was not fully equipped to carry out its mission because it lacks key resources — data and personnel — from its partner agencies, which may be at least partially attributed to collaboration challenges it has faced.
It recommended that the DHS work with its interagency partners to establish a strategy and performance measures for collaboration. As of March 2011, DHS had not finalized a collaboration strategy, but officials reported that they had been working with interagency partners to develop it.