ms that use the minimum
amount of patient data necessary and consider patient
confidentiality and privacy issues at all stages of
development and apprise the Privacy Officer of such
efforts; and
(6) alerting Member Agencies and, in coordination
with (and where possible through) Member Agencies,
public health agencies of State, local, and tribal
governments regarding any incident that could develop
into a biological event of national concern.
(d) Responsibilities of the Directing Officer of the
NBIC.--
(1) In general.--The Directing Officer of the NBIC
shall--
(A) on an ongoing basis, monitor the
availability and appropriateness of
surveillance systems used by the NBIC and those
systems that could enhance biological
situational awareness or the overall
performance of the NBIC;
(B) on an ongoing basis, review and seek to
improve the statistical and other analytical
methods used by the NBIC;
(C) receive and consider other relevant
homeland security information, as appropriate;
and
(D) provide technical assistance, as
appropriate, to all Federal, regional, State,
local, and tribal government entities and
private sector entities that contribute data
relevant to the operation of the NBIC.
(2) Assessments.--The Directing Officer of the NBIC
shall--
(A) on an ongoing basis, evaluate available
data for evidence of a biological event of
national concern; and
(B) integrate homeland security information
with NBIC data to provide overall situational
awareness and determine whether a biological
event of national concern has occurred.
(3) Information sharing.--
(A) In general.--The Directing Officer of
the NBIC shall--
(i) establish a method of real-time
communication with the National
Operations Center;
(ii) in the event that a biological