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Homeland Security Presidential Directive 5 (28 February 2003) calls for a National Incident Management System (NIMS) to provide a consistent nationwide approach for federal, state, and local governments in preparedness for, response to, and recovery from domestic incidents. The Incident Command System (ICS) is nationally recognized as the platform of choice for unification of operations in emergency response. Although ICS is a well-known entity in traditional first responder circles such as fire and law enforcement, the first responders in an event involving bioterrorism would be public health providers along with hospital and community healthcare personnel (non-traditional first responders). The national public health system has the healthcare expertise related to biological agents, but it lacks the ability to take command and control of consequence management operations.