Homeland security presents new challenges for national, state and local government agencies. One of the most important missions for these agencies is to be prepared for the threat of biological terrorism – the deliberate use of disease as a weapon. CUBRC researchers are working to strengthen the State and local health systems by enhancing medical communications and disease surveillance capabilities. Two of our projects in this area include:
 
- Syndromic Surveillance using Western New York Hospital Emergency Department Triage Nurse Data. In this project CUBRC researchers have developed an automated data collection, reporting and analysis system that was implemented in Emergency Departments within hospitals in Western New York. This system supported bioterrorism event detection as well as the more routine local Department of Health disease monitoring and surveillance activities
 
- Pre-hospital Care Data Collection. CUBRC researchers have developed a tablet computer data collection and reporting system for use by pre-hospital emergency medical service (EMS) providers. This system is able to provide EMS field data, in near real-time, to regional disease surveillance and monitoring systems.