TY - JOUR AU - Baker, Heater AU - Lesniak, Chandra AU - Iarocci, Emily AU - Calapristi, Gus AU - Hart, Michelle AU - Dowson, Scott AU - Charles-Smith, Lauren AU - Huang, Yi AU - Quitugua, Teresa PY - 2017/05/02 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - NBIC Biofeeds: A Digital Tool for Open Source Biosurveillance across Federal Agencies JF - Online Journal of Public Health Informatics JA - OJPHI VL - 9 IS - 1 SE - Information system architectures, development and implementation DO - 10.5210/ojphi.v9i1.7642 UR - https://ojphi.org/ojs/index.php/ojphi/article/view/7642 SP - AB - Objective<br />The National Biosurveillance Integration Center (NBIC) is<br />developing a scalable, flexible open source data collection, analysis,<br />and dissemination tool to support biosurveillance operations by<br />the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its federal<br />interagency partners.<br />Introduction<br />The NBIC integrates, analyzes, and distributes key information<br />about health and disease events to help ensure the nation’s responses<br />are well-informed, save lives, and minimize economic impact. NBIC<br />serves as a bridge between Federal, State, Local, Territorial, and<br />Tribal entities to conduct biosurveillance across human, animal, plant,<br />and environmental domains. The integration of information enables<br />early warning and shared situational awareness of biological events<br />to inform critical decisions directing response and recovery efforts.<br />To meet its mission objectives, NBIC utilizes a variety of data<br />sets, including open source information, to provide comprehensive<br />coverage of biological events occurring across the globe. NBIC<br />Biofeeds is a digital tool designed to improve the efficiency of<br />reviewing and analyzing large volumes of open source reporting<br />by biosurveillance analysts on a daily basis; moreover, the system<br />provides a mechanism to disseminate tailored feeds allowing NBIC to<br />better meet the specific information needs of individual, interagency<br />partners. The tool is currently under development by the Department<br />of Energy (DOE), Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL)<br />and it is in a testing and evaluation phase supported by NBIC<br />biosurveillance subject matter experts. Integration with the Defense<br />Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), Biosurveillance Ecosystem<br />(BSVE) is also underway. NBIC Biofeeds Version 1 is expected to<br />be fully operational in Fiscal Year 2017.<br />Methods<br />The PNNL is applying agile methodology to streamline the build<br />of NBIC Biofeeds to specifications required for operational use by<br />NBIC and its federal interagency partners. Biosurveillance, analytics,<br />and system engineering subject matter experts provide guidance on<br />the implementation of features in the tool to ensure functionality<br />aligns with operational workflows and production support. PNNL is<br />leveraging software from a previous government effort to repurpose<br />the technology to meet NBIC needs. NBIC Biofeeds incorporates<br />the open source, document-orientated MongoDB database to capture<br />user- and system-generated metadata on hundreds of thousands<br />of records, in part, to establish baselines to aid prospective and<br />retrospective analysis on emerging biological events. NBIC Biofeeds<br />integrates a biosurveillance taxonomy (uniquely developed by NBIC),<br />which includes input from interagency partners to recognize critical<br />characteristics of a biological event. In NBIC Biofeeds Version<br />1, metadata capture of reported events is done manually by NBIC<br />analysts; however, moving forward in Version 2, the tool will be<br />further automated to flag significant reporting on biological events<br />with a human remaining in the loop to confirm the validity of the<br />system-generated tags.<br />Results<br />To serve as a one-stop tool for open source biosurveillance,<br />NBIC Biofeeds automatically harvests information from thousands<br />of websites, utilizing third party aggregators, paid subscriptions to<br />data feeds, and scraping of high priority sources. Users can develop<br />desired queries for automatic updating, leverage a unique review<br />and curation mechanism, and further analyze data from topical,<br />geographic, and temporal visualization features in the tool. To meet<br />NBIC’s information sharing needs, the tool allows for design of<br />tailored RSS feeds and electronic message-based delivery of analysis<br />on biological events, intended for recipients in the government with<br />unique missions around human, animal, plant, and environmental<br />health.<br />Conclusions<br />Through current testing and evaluation – underway by<br />biosurveillance subject matter experts – NBIC Biofeeds is<br />demonstrating value in supporting open source biosurveillance<br />by the Center for more rapid recognition and sharing of key event<br />characteristics. Centralizing access and analysis of this dataset<br />into a single system is increasing the efficiency of daily, global<br />biosurveillance, while enhancing the value of information identified<br />through use of the querying, curation, and production support features<br />in the tool. ER -