An online “information dashboard” that can improve the nation’s response to a major disease outbreak has earned the 2010 Science & Technology Impact Award from the Department of Homeland Security.

Specifically, the award honors the National Center for Foreign Animal and Zoonotic Disease Defense (FAZD) for rapidly deploying the technology – known as the Bio-surveillance Common Operating Picture (BCOP) – for DHS during the global H1N1 flu pandemic of 2009. FAZD Center researchers built, tested and launched the BCOP in weeks rather than months as originally scheduled.

“This versatile technology offers many applications to enhance homeland security, including human health, animal health, national defense and emergency management,” said Tammy Beckham, the FAZD Center’s interim director. “Information dashboards like the BCOP allow for a faster, more effective response to a crisis or disaster at all levels: local, state and federal.”

In addition to serving as a command and control systems for decision makers during crisis and disasters, information dashboards can also work as training simulators, Beckham said.

“They can create ‘virtual veterans’ of large-scale disasters,” she said.