Improving Public Health Preparedness: Strengthening Biosurveillance Systems for Enhanced Situational Awareness

The North Carolina Institute for Public Health, in collaboration with CDC and the Public Health Informatics Institute, developed a set of core requirements for the development and maintenance of electronic biosurveillance systems to achieve situational awareness. The three-stage research process included a literature review, interviews with key informants in the biosurveillance field, and a multi-day workshop attended by surveillance experts across the United States Best practices, innovations, and lessons learned were leveraged to identify the minimum capabilities of effective biosurveillance systems, with the goal of achieving preparedness for natural disasters, disease outbreaks, or hazards during mass gatherings.