Compliled_questions_CME-responses-7-12-19.pdf

06/28/2019

Questions and Responses Regarding Solicitation 19-000881

Continuing Medical Education (CME) Activities

1. How many NIH staff and what CME experience do they have, will be involved in this program?

There are 2 NIH staff involved (1 Director and 1 administrative staff member). The Director has more than 15 years of experience with CME activities at NIH and elsewhere, and the administrative staff member has 3 years of experience with CME at NIH.

2. Will NIH staff have any responsibility for program administration: selection of topics; selection of faculty; interaction with selected faculty for collection of CME documents, presentation materials, and compliance documentation? Yes, for all.

3. What are the components of the risk management and risk assessment plan? The vendor would be responsible for developing a risk management/assessment plan for their database and CME processes and procedures. Components may include Risk Statement, Risk Category, Subrisk Category, Risk

Impact Score, Risk Likelihood Score, Overall Risk Score, Risk Response, however the components would ultimately be determined by the vendor.

4. How many Activity Directors are involved with this program? To be determined after award.

5. Last year, how much did NIH pay the current vendor for CME services rendered? For the last option year of the current contract, the NIH paid the vendor $56,388.

6. As a 25 year old small women owned for-profit business focused sole only the provision of CME, we have worked with numerous non-profit institutions of high learning, the Department of Defense and other government agencies providing CME services; therefore, can we respond to this solicitation? If the answer is yes, will we be evaluated on the same basis as non-profit CME applicants? Please review all deliverables associated with this requirement. It is the responsibility of your company to determine if your capabilities align with the needs of the Government. If you determine that your company’s capabilities can meet the Government’s need, please submit the response. All contractors who submit a response to the solicitation will be evaluated against the same evaluation factors.

Regarding the transfer of historical records,

7. In what database are current vendor records stored?

The current vendor database is the Cloud CME.

8. What data fields are stored?

Data fields include elements required by the Program and Activity Reporting System (PARS) per

Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education accreditation policy.

9. How many records are stored?

There are approximately 685 records stored for Clinical Center Grand Rounds annually. A variable number of records are stored annually for other NIH CME activities.

10. How many previous years of records are stored?

There are 9 years of NIH records in Cloud CME.

Regarding the activities outlines on page 8 and 9 of the Statement of Work,

11. Has NIH conducted needs assessment for these activities?

The NIH has not conducted an institutional needs assessment for CME activities under the current contract with the CME vendor. The individual CME Activity Directors determine if a needs assessment is required, and, if so, it is done as part of the application process for CME credits.

For each of the activities outlined on page 8 and 9 of the Statement of Work,

12. How many actual events are planned?

There are currently 12 CME RSS Activities that are planned and executed over a span averaging 52 weeks.

13. How many faculty are involved?

Each CME RSS Activity has 1-2 faculty involved each week.

14. How many of faculty are involved in more than one activity?

Often at NIH, there are faculty who present at more than one CME RSS Activity. The exact figure varies year to year across the CME activity programs.

15. How many participants are involved?

This number varies with the CME Activity but the average number of in-person audience participants for Clinical Center Grand Rounds is 161 and the average number of remote audience participants is

209 per weekly session.

16. What type of reports and how frequently are they required?

Cloud CME generates reports related to Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education and

American Medical Association regulations for CME accreditation. Additional reports also capture:

• Participant attendance

• CME transcripts and attendee personal CME data

• Short and long-term attendees participation

• Regularly Scheduled Conferences (RSC) monitoring in accordance with ACCME requirements

• Annual needs assessments for activity content, as requested

• Assessment outcomes

• Evaluation data, including final year-end closeout cumulative evaluation summary data

17. Curious if this was a follow-on requirement. If so, would it be possible for you to provide the incumbent information (we need the contract number and contractor)? This information is public knowledge and can be found in sources such as the Federal Procurement Database System – Next

Generation (FPDS-NG) as well as the Government-Wide Point-of-Entry (FedBizOpps).