2014.ISDS.Abstracts.Final.pdf


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ISDS 2014 Conference Abstracts

The Global Biosurveillance Portal: Biosurveillance for 
the Department of Defense

Janelle A. Anderson*, C. Nicole Rosenzweig, Jason Roos and Brandon Flores

Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical and Biological Defense, Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD, USA

Objective
This presentation aims to describe the development, initial use, and 

future directions of the Biosurveillance Portal.

Introduction
The 2012 National Strategy for Biosurveillance1 calls for 

improved integration, synchronization, and coordination of national 
biosurveillance activities and acknowledges the benefits of collective 
knowledge through sharing and receiving of biosurveillance 
information via strengthened partnerships amongst international, 
federal, state, local, tribal, territorial, private sector, nongovernmental, 
academic and other participants. To assist in meeting these goals 
and goals specifically called out by United States (U.S.) Military 
and international partners, the Joint Program Executive Office for 
Chemical and Biological Defense began developing a software suite 
to support biosurveillance needs. In October 2014, the Biosurveillance 
Portal (BSP) will be deployed to support biosurveillance operations 
in the Korean Theater. In October 2016, the BSP will be available 
globally.

Methods
System Development
The BSP is being developed on the Ozone Widget Framework 

(OWF) architecture, which will allow users to organize and use 
multiple web applications in a single window. The BSP will be a 
system of systems and will pull in capabilities and data streams that 
are already available across the Department of Defense (DoD), other 
government agencies and industry. For example, there is a plan in 
place for data and information to be ingested from the Armed Forces 
Health Surveillance Center, the U.S. Army Public Health Command, 
and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as from 
feeds from the World Health Organization, and the Program for 
Monitoring Emerging Diseases. Many other government systems are 
also being developed on the OWF, which allows all of these systems 
to easily integrate, as needed, and allows the U.S. government to 
produce multiple types of systems in the most cost efficient manner 
without duplicating efforts.

BSP developers are using an agile development approach with a 
cycle of one month sprints, and three month capability drops. Each 
capability drop delivery is followed up with a user feedback event 
where users test and evaluate the capabilities that have been delivered.

Requirements
The U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) recognized 

that no current capability exists to support the National Strategy’s 
intent. In addition, USSOCOM requires a biosurveillance system to 
close information gaps that presently delay decision making at the 
tactical, operational and strategic levels, and inhibit effective planning 
and response. The Korean BSP was recognized by USSOCOM as the 
potential tool that following modifications could be used to meet their 
biosurveillance needs.

USSOCOM biosurveillance data and information requirements as 
well as system requirements were laid out in a requirements document 
that was validated in May 2014. For each data requirement potential 
data providers have been identified from offices within the DoD, 

other federal government agencies, and private organizations. BSP 
developers will work with these data providers to determine how their 
data will be ingested by the BSP with data agreements put in place 
as needed.

It is anticipated that other U.S. Combatant Commands (CCMDs) 
have biosurveillance needs that are similar to those of USSOCOM. 
Because of this, BSP developers are also engaging key stakeholders at 
other CCMDs in order to document and incorporate their requirements 
into the BSP.

Results
The BSP was used as the primary communication tool during a 

trilateral whole of government biological event exercise involving the 
U.S., Republic of Korea, and Australia. The first operational release 
will represent the first fully integrated DoD network accredited 
capability set and is planned for deployment in October 2014.

Conclusions
The BSP has already proven itself as an effective communication 

tool that can be used during biological event exercises. As the 
BSP matures it will provide information sharing across the DoD 
biosurveillance community of interest, other U.S. Government 
agencies, and foreign government agencies to promote a “whole of 
government” biosurveillance capability. Ultimately, the BSP will 
facilitate collaboration, communication, information sharing, and 
provide a centralization of biosurveillance resources in support of the 
detection, management and mitigation of man-made and naturally 
occurring events.

Keywords
biosurveillance; Department of Defense; communication

References

1. White House. (2012). National Strategy for Biosurveillance. Retrieved 
from http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/National_
Strategy_for_Biosurveillance_July_2012.pdf

*Janelle A. Anderson

E-mail: janelle.a.anderson.civ@mail.mil    

Online Journal of Public Health Informatics * ISSN 1947-2579 * http://ojphi.org * (1):e63, 201