Justification_(Final)_-_Redacted_Redacted.pdf

United States Department of the Interior

INTERIOR BUSINESS CENTER

Washington, DC 20240

JUSTIFICATION FOR AN EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY

AUTHORITY: FAR 16.505(b)(2)

SOLICITATION #140D0419Q0089

1. Identification of the agency and the contracting activity, and specific identification of the document as a “Justification for an Exception to Fair Opportunity.”

This document is a Justification for an Exception to Fair Opportunity for the Department of the Interior, Interior Business Center, Acquisition Services Directorate, Division I Branch III. The customer agency is the Program Executive Office Defense Healthcare Management Systems

(PEO DHMS).

2. Nature and/or description of the action being approved.

The purpose of this document is to outline the rationale for establishing a sole source award for Defense Medical Information Exchange (DMIX) sustainment services for PEO DHMS during the period of stay while the protest of the follow-on competitive award is resolved at the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The follow-on action is currently under a stay, making it impossible to begin the transition to the new contract action. The Acquisition Services Directorate (AQD) therefore intends to issue a Firm Fixed Price (FFP) task order under the NITAAC CIO-SP3 Small Business (SB) Government Wide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) to the incumbent contractor, ActioNet, Inc. (ActioNet).

3. A description of the supplies or services required to meet the agency’s needs (including the estimated value).

This requirement is for Defense Medical Information Exchange (DMIX) sustainment services for PEO DHMS. The objectives of this requirement are to provide contractor support with the following:

- Continually report Systems Operational status as well as metrics that track quality of DMIX Program Management Office (PMO) products.

- Provide Sustainment services for PMO DMIX products (Bidirectional Health Information Exchange (BHIE) share, Data Exchange Service (DES), Clinical Health Data Repository (CHDR), James A Lovell Federal Health Care Center (JALFHCC), Medical Single Sign On and Context Management (MSSO-CM) and Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) and associated data map tables.

The Period of Performance (PoP) will be six months consisting of a Base Period of two (2) months and four Option Periods of one (1) month each, which will only be exercised if necessary. The estimated value for the entire Firm-Fixed-Price (FFP) task order is

4. Identification of the exception to fair opportunity (see 16.505(b)(2)) and the supporting rationale, including a demonstration that the proposed contractor’s unique qualifications or the nature of the acquisition requires use of the exception cited. If the contracting officer uses the logical follow-on exception, the rationale shall describe why the relationship between the initial order and the follow-on is logical (e.g., in terms of scope, period of performance, or value).

FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i)(B) – Only one awardee is capable of providing the supplies or services required at the level of quality required because the supplies or services ordered are unique or highly specialized (to include brand name in accordance with 16.505(a)(4)).

During the proposed period of performance, DMIX has two products with software updates developed by the current sustainment vendor, ActioNet, and scheduled for release: 1) CHDR

3.8.0.0 release scheduled for 02/14/2019. ActioNet has been working this release for nearly four

(4) months; 2) JAL FHCC has a capability upgrade scheduled for 05/17/2019. ActioNet has been working this release for 14 months, coordinating with other legacy vendors on test and interface requirements and developing the appropriate legacy software code changes. ActioNet is intimately familiar with the interoperability and unique legacy software code requirements of both of these releases. Only ActioNet has the capability of completing the release at the quality required and on schedule.

ActioNet is uniquely qualified to support PEO DHMS with DMIX sustainment services while the protest for the planned follow on contract is being adjudicated as it is the vendor currently performing the work with high system knowledge and access, and has the capability to support this task with minimal interruption or schedule impact. Issuing a contract to new contractor for this bridge support is not in the Government’s best interest as a new contractor would need time to hire incumbent staff and familiarize themselves with the requirement. ActioNet can avoid the unacceptable delays that bringing in a new contractor would require and is the only vendor with the capability and experience needed to meet the Government requirements on this tight schedule. Moreover, it would not be appropriate to compete this requirement since this would be circumventing the protest process.

Obtaining competition for this bridge is impracticable under the circumstances described herein.

Obtaining competition would require considerable lead time to identify sources, receive proposals, conduct a source selection, and process appropriate award paperwork. Selecting any other source would also require a significant transition in/ramp up period to get a new contractor up to speed on the complex services provided, including transfer of documentation, and obtaining access to controlled Government systems.

The award of this contract action is most advantageous and in the best interest of the Government in meeting critical PEO DHMS mission requirements.

5. A determination by the contracting officer that the anticipated cost to the Government will be fair and reasonable.

The Contracting Officer (CO) will use the proposal analysis technique described at FAR 15.404- 1 to determine whether prices are fair and reasonable. The CO will seek further price discounts and make a separate determination as to the reasonableness of the vendor’s pricing. The CO will compare pricing against historical prices paid for the same or similar services (including with the previous task order with ActioNet) and against Government cost estimates.

6. Any other facts supporting the justification.

During the previous protest period, DMIX had a major release for the DES and JLV systems in October 2018.A patch release, developed by other contractors, will correct DES defects and increase functionality and is scheduled for 31 January 2019 implementation. The sustainment contractor, ActioNet shall be required to add this software patch release to their full range of sustainment support services to the DMIX PMO 30 days after that patch release. Such services continuously include, but are not be limited to: Development, Test, and Production Environment Operations and Sustainment tasks required for the effective management of the integrated functional/technical capabilities supporting the modernization and interoperability mission of PEO DHMS. DMIX Products currently supported under this task order include: JAL FHCC solution, BHIE Share, CDHR, and DES. Moreover, additional systems/solutions may be added to the DMIX PMO product line. The contractor has the sole responsibility for 24 x 7 monitoring, operating, and maintaining the production systems of DMIX which relies on daily support of the data exchanges between the systems. The data exchanges are extremely complex and involve crossing numerous boundaries with other systems. Various problems occur daily, of which some are minor and some are major. Examples of these issues are network latency (local or enterprise-wide), miscommunicated systems patches that bring systems down, corrupted databases, a blade being pulled out of a storage network, etc. The contractor provides critical, time sensitive information and assistance in troubleshooting these issues and getting systems back on line as soon as possible. Without this contract action, DMIX will not have insight into critical systems, which could result in more frequent outages of longer duration that directly impact patients and providers.

The DMIX family of systems pulls together data from multiple disparate Defense Health Agency and Department of Veterans Affairs data sources (AHLTA CDR, CHCS, Essentris, Theater data from TMDS, VA VistA, military service readiness data from MODS, EHA, ASSIMS as well as over 53 external partner Health Information Exchanges such as INOVA, Sentara, MnNS, CORHIO, etc.). DMIX then compiles that data and exchanges it daily with numerous different healthcare data consumers (MHS GENESIS, AHLTA, Theater TMDS, VA LVS, VA DAS, HAIMS, etc.). These data exchanges, in the DoD and VA alone, occur approximately 60,000 to 70,000 times every day. The data exchange numbers reflect “patient select transactions,” which include multiple individual data elements; the number of individual data elements exchanged numbers in the millions. The longer the systems remain offline, the larger the risk of patient misdiagnosis, missed allergies alerts, duplicative procedures, increased overlook of “drug seeking” behavior, and missed negative medicine interactions. In general, the longer certain systems are offline, clinicians have less data to obtain a holistic understanding of a patient’s health, which places greater safety risk and burden on the patients and harms medical readiness.

Medical readiness focuses on sustaining and protecting the health and effectiveness of the human component of the American military. This is important not only for accomplishing the mission but also for meeting the expectations of military personnel, commanders, Congress, and the American people. The complexity of meeting these expectations across the range of military operations (ROMO) requires the Military Health System (MHS) to support service members, their families, and all those entrusted to MHS care. Without the data provided by the DMIX family of systems, military commanders are less able to determine the readiness of the warfighters under their command in order to successfully prosecute the missions to which they are assigned.

7. A statement of the actions, if any, the agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers that led to the exception to fair opportunity before any subsequent acquisition for the supplies or services is made.

AQD anticipates to only utilize this sole source award to provide critical support to PEO DHMS during the protest period (GAO's decision is due in March 2019). Future option periods will only be exercised as necessary to continue support.