36C10B19Q0077-000.docx

Control Number TAC-19-53174

VA VMC Hosting Services Control Number TAC-19-53174 FedBizOpps Combined Synopsis/Solicitation Notice

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* = Required Field FedBizOpps Combined Synopsis/Solicitation Notice Rev. March 2010 R Sole Source VA VMC Gaming Hosting Services 07724 36C10B19Q0077 12-11-2018 N 541512 Department of Veterans Affairs Technology Acquisition Center 23 Christopher Way Eatontown NJ 07724 See Attachments The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Office of Procurement, Acquisition, and Logistics (OPAL), Technology Acquisition Center (TAC), located at 23 Christopher Way, Eatontown, New Jersey, intends to enter into a sole source contract for the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) Employee Education System (EES) eLearning Gaming office for web hosting services for the Virtual Medical Center.

The TAC intends to award a sole source firm-fixed price contract with Engineering & Computer Simulations, (ECS) Inc., located in 11825 High Tech Ave., Suite 250, Orlando, FL 32817.The Statutory Authority being utilized is Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 13.501, entitled “Special Documentation Requirements”. However, in accordance with FAR 5.207(c) (16) (ii), all responsible sources may submit a capability statement, proposal, or quotation, which shall be considered by the agency. The period of performance shall be 12 months from the date of the award. The North American Industrial Classification (NAICS) for this effort is 541512. The anticipated award date is December 15, 2018.

This notification shall close on December 15, 2018. Questions/responses shall be submitted via e-mail to Contract Specialist, Jamie McPherson, e-mail: Jamie.McPherson@va.gov, with the subject line as the synopsis number, 36C10B19Q0077. The Points of Contact (POCs) for this action are Jamie McPherson, Contract Specialist, 732-795-1090 or David Sette, Contracting Officer, 732-440-9711.

JUSTIFICATION FOR A SOLE SOURCE AWARD

FOR CERTAIN COMMERCIAL ITEMS

1. Contracting Activity: Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of Procurement Acquisition and Logistics Technology Acquisition Center 23 Christopher Way Eatontown, NJ 07724

2. Description of Action: The proposed sole source action is for a firm-fixed price (FFP) order for delivery of hosting, sustainment support, help desk and licensing services for the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) Employee Education System (EES) eLearning Gaming Office’s Virtual Medical Center (VMC).

3. Description of Supplies or Services: The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Veterans Health Administration (VHA), Employee Education System (EES) eLearning Gaming Office has a requirement for hosting sustainment support, help desk, and licensing services for the Veterans Affairs (VA) VMC. This requirement will reuse the current VA VMC hosting baseline. The VA VMC is a continuously available virtual environment accessible to Providers, Veteran Patients and their family members. It provides Veteran Patient access to validated medical materials and resources, improving healthcare information by connecting healthcare professionals and patients in a truly collaborative environment. Additionally, it provides VA Providers access to specialized medical reference materials and provides them with a venue to communicate and collaborate in effective new ways. For the purposes of return on investment and the continuation of educational services for Veterans and staff, a continuation of services provided in the VMC is required. The period of performance is 12 months from the date of award.

4. Statutory Authority: The statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition is 41 U.S.C. 1903 as implemented by the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Subpart 13.501, entitled “Special Documentation Requirements”.

5. Rationale Supporting Use of Authority Cited Above: The proposed source for this action is Engineering and Computer Simulations (ECS), Inc., 11825 High Tech Avenue, Suite 250, Orlando, FL 32817. ECS is the owner of “NEXUS”, which is the original baseline source code for the Veteran Affairs VMC. Only ECS can provide the required hosting services as the hosted application is owned by ECS and contains proprietary information within the cloud hosted platform. Though the training simulations are VHA financed, the platform is a commercial product and any modifications required to the computing environment requires

VA

access to source code and configurations that are proprietary to ECS. If any other offeror were to attempt to modify this code it would result in an invalidation of all licenses and agreements with ECS and VA would be evicted from the current hosting environment. ECS is the only source capable of providing VA with the required sustainment services for the Virtual Medical Center product, as the applications/source code requiring sustainment are proprietary to ECS. Similarly, the required help desk services require access to and knowledge of the ECS proprietary code. As such, no other company can provide this support. Currently there are over 9,000 active users within the VMC environment participating in a variety of educational and provider lead programs. Moving this system to a new provider/platform would shut down all services for these users for a minimum of 2 years to rebuild the system. Switching to an alternative platform would cause unnecessary delay in getting the Veteran patients and family members the access to collaborative healthcare information and services. Any new vendor would result in downtime for the VMC and would significantly reduce the return on investment for the training product.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted, the details of which are in section 8 of this justification. This effort did not yield any additional sources that can meet the Government’s requirements; therefore, no competition is anticipated for this acquisition. In accordance with FAR 5.201 the proposed action will be synopsized on the Federal Business Opportunities website. Any proposals that are received will be evaluated.

7. Actions to Increase Competition: The Government will continue to conduct market research to ascertain if there are changes in the market place that would enable future actions to be competed for the required services.

8. Market Research: Market research was conducted by the Governments technical expert, Brian James, in October 2018 by reviewing the capabilities of the following companies involved in creating simulations and medical virtual environments: PLW Modelworks, Stack up, Doghead Simulations, and MD Live. While the reviewed companies are likely capable of providing similar development possibilities, none have access to the proprietary source code used in the ECS cloud environment. Additional Additional market research was conducted by the Contract Specialist on November 1, 2018 by contacting ECS to determine if ECS was the sole owner of the Source Code which comprises the hosted solutions and which is hosted on the ECS platform. On November 1, 2018, the Contract Specialist sent a market research inquiry to ECS representative Lynn Woods requesting information on whether it owns the source code and if it is the sole developer of the required VA VMC Gaming Hosting Services. On November 6, 2018, ECS representative, Lynn Woods responded and confirmed that ECS owned the source code and is the sole developer for the VA VMC Gaming Hosting Services. As a result, the market research confirmed that ECS is the only source provider capable of meeting the Government’s requirements for this effort.

9. Other Facts: None.

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