National Bio-Surveillance System Falls Short

Over at In Case of Emergency, Jimmy Jazz walks us through the recent DHS Inspector General's report on the National Bio-Surveillance Integration System (NBIS). It's not a pretty sight. The DHS OIG concludes that:

NBIS, a key element of DHS’ bio-protection program, is falling short of its objectives. Specifically, DHS has not provided consistent leadership and staff support to ensure successful execution of the NBIS program.

Jimmy summarizes the problem:

To date, there is no coordinated effort to coalesce the data gathered into anything resembling intelligence - never mind injecting actual intelligence reports into the soup that is bio-surveillance.

The challenge of creating and/or integrating information sharing systems continues to be an ongoing problem - from HSIN to fusion centers to the NBIS.