REDACTED_JA Request of Information (ROI) Plus subscription license and maintenance.pdf

Control Number VA-21-00016161

JUSTIFICATION

FOR AN EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY

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: This proposed action is for a firm-fixed price delivery order to be issued under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) V Governmentwide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) for brand name Document Storage System, Inc. (DSS) Request of Information (ROI) Plus subscription license renewals with maintenance and perfective maintenance support services. This action also includes an optional task to integrate the ROI Plus software from Veterans Health Information System Technology Architecture (VistA) to the VA Electronic Health Record Modernization (EHRM) system, a commercial EHR developed by Cerner.

3. Description of the Supplies or Services: VA, Office of Health Informatics, Health Information Governance has a requirement for 153 brand name DSS ROI Plus software license renewals, maintenance support, and perfective maintenance services. DSS ROI Plus enables health care facilities to track, process, and manage requests for copies of information contained in the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) Privacy Act System of Records and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) designated record sets, lawful under the HIPAA Privacy Rule and the Freedom of Information Act.

All licenses come with maintenance for downloads, upgrades, bug fixes, major and minor release upgrades, and troubleshooting. Troubleshooting consists of support Monday through Friday, 8:00am to 7:00pm Eastern Time, via electronic, telephone, and on-site tasking. Emergency maintenance is also provided for all licenses 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year. Also, as part of this requirement, VA requires perfective maintenance. This perfective maintenance is performed as minor changes to the software that VA normally requests to be released approximately twice each year.

The period of performance shall be March 1, 2021 through February 28, 2022 with two 12-month options and one optional task to interface the current ROI Plus software from Veterans Health Information System Technology Architecture (VistA) to the VA EHRM system. The total estimated price of this proposed action, including the option periods and optional task, is XXXXXXXX.

4. Statutory Authority: The statutory authority permitting an exception to fair opportunity is Section 41 U.S.C. 4106(c)(2) as implemented by the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 16.505(b)(2)(i)(B), 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.

5. Rationale Supporting Use of Authority Cited Above: Based on market research, as described in section 8 of this document, it was determined that limited competition is

ROI Plus Software and Maintenance Control Number VA-21-00016161 viable among authorized resellers for brand name DSS ROI software licenses and services. In 2003, VHA deployed the DSS ROI Manager software system (currently called ROI Plus) to satisfy the mandate under the Privacy Act of 1974, title 5, United States Code 552a(c) which states that agencies must keep an accounting of the date, nature, and purpose of each disclosure of a record to any person or to another agency.

Additionally, 5 U.S.C 552a(c)(3) requires agencies to make the accounting available to the individual named in the record at the person s request except for certain law enforcement activities. The HIPAA Privacy Rule, 45 CFR 164.528; prescribes when disclosures may be made without an authorization from the patient and requires covered entities to maintain an accounting of disclosures and this accounting of disclosure must be provided to the requestor within 60 calendar days of receipt.

This requirement is to renew licenses and acquire maintenance support and perfective maintenance services for the continued use of the DSS ROI Plus software in order to remain compliant with the aforementioned mandate. DSS ROI software is the only software that integrates with VistA and Computerized Patient Records System (CPRS) graphical user interface, to provide a single point of data entry for real-time interaction between the system and the patie This software retrieves information from CPRS when requested by Veterans or their families. When this occurs, it results in an ROI disclosure. This ability to interface with CPRS and VistA allows VA to generate an automated accounting of disclosures in accordance with the Privacy Act and HIPAA Privacy Rule requirements, which no other brand software allows. DSS ROI Plus is the only software available that can provide this single point of data entry for real-time interaction and already interfaced to CPRS, which is a VA functional requirement.

Failure to procure the DSS ROI Plus as described would have a severe impact on VA and the Veteran. VA would be required to account for all of the disclosures manually, which equates to well over a million disclosures annually. VA would have to manually compile a report when a party requests an accounting of disclosures or a disclosure summary. Manually compiling this data would involve VA looking through all paper disclosures and then compiling a report. It is estimated that this would take approximately six months once a request is received in order to gather all the information and build the report manually. But this disclosure is required by the HIPAA Privacy Rule and the Privacy Act, as well as VHA Directive 1605.01 Privacy and the Release of Information to be provided to the Veteran is due within 60 calendar days;

therefore, six months is not acceptable.

The optional task to interface the current ROI Plus software is comprised of the ROI Plus software to integrate from VistA to the VA EHRM system. To functionally track, manage and process ROI requests contained in the Cerner Millennium application, AccessHIM, does not effectively meet the VHA business needs for a ROI Management system. AccessHIM lacks functionality to allow for effective ROI Management and the creation of a comprehensive accounting of disclosures in compliance with the Privacy Act and HIPAA Privacy Rule; only DSS or its authorized resellers have access to the proprietary code, and therefore are the only sources that can provide the requirements within the optional task.

Additionally, as part of this requirement, VA requires brand name software maintenance and perfective maintenance from DSS or its authorized reseller. The required software being maintained contains proprietary code and any form of maintenance, such as bug fixes or enhancements, cannot be performed by any other vendor. Only DSS or its authorized resellers have access to this proprietary code, and therefore are the only sources that can provide the required maintenance and perfective maintenance.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted, details of which are in the market research section of this document. This effort did not yield any additional sources that can meet ements. It was determined, however, that limited competition is viable among authorized resellers for the brand name DSS ROI software. In accordance with FAR 5.301 and 16.505(b)(2), this action will be synopsized on the Federal Business Opportunities Page and the justification will be made publicly available within 14 days of award. Additionally, in accordance with FAR 16.505(a)(4)(iii)(A) this justification will be posted with the request for quotation on the NASA SEWP V GWAC website to notify all interested parties.

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

8. Market Research: Market research was conducted during November 2020 by utilizing the NASA SEWP V Request for Information (RFI) Tool. RFI Request #175703 yielded only one response from a DSS, Inc. authorized reseller, GMC Tek, LLC. GMC Tek, LLC is a HUBZone certified, Small Disadvantaged, Minority Woman owned business. GMC Tek meets all of the requirements of the product description.

Additional market research was conducted during December 2020 by technical experts by reviewing similar products. Specifically, the Government technical experts conducted web-based research on software solutions offered by Health ease of Information system. The software solutions described must be able to have a product already built that is compatible with VistA and offer an accounting of disclosure feature. HealthPort uses ROI Online which is a cloud-based solution that stands alone, that can fill requests, scan requests and mail out the requests but do not have a robust accounting of disclosure process in place. They use what the they call ROI lite where it is only used in certain areas for tracking the disclosure and other areas would be a paper-based solution.

VA reviewed each of the possible source s product information. Based upon reviews of these products, the Gover even though the companies can meet the accounting of disclosure requirement neither have the capability to meet the Governme s functionality, interoperability and compatibility requirements to provide a single point of data entry for real-time interactions and interfaces to CPRS as discussed in section 5 above. No other solutions can seamlessly integrate with t VistA and CPRS. Additionally, as stated above in section five, only DSS ROI or an authorized reseller can provide the required subscription license renewals with maintenance and perfective maintenance support services. The have determined that only DSS ROI brand name subscription license renewals with maintenance and perfective maintenance support services can meet all s needs.

An optional task is included in the ROI Product Description for interfacing the EHRM system and VistA ROI Plus software. Based on the ROI Plus Market Research received from DSS, Incorporated, regarding the Cerner/VistA interface, DSS, Incorporated, stated that they are the sole proprietor of the Release of Information (ROI) Plus software. Therefore, no other vendor would be able to modify ROI Plus to have a Cerner integration version.

Additional market research was conducted in November 2020 by utilizing the NASA SEWP Provider Lookup tool to determine whether the brand name DSS ROI products are available from NASA SEWP V GWAC holders. VA determined that there are several authorized resellers of the brand name DSS ROI products that hold current GWACs such that limited competition is anticipated.

9. Other Facts: None.