36C10X24Q0076_1.docx

SUBJECT*

VHA Clinical Online Training Courseware

GENERAL INFORMATION

Department of Veterans Affairs

5202 Presidents Court, Suite 103 Frederick MD 21703

POINT OF CONTACT*

Contracting Officer Wanda Y Edwards wanda.edwards@va.gov Dante Ruiz dante.ruiz@va.gov

PLACE OF PERFORMANCE

POSTAL CODE

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

AGENCY CONTACT’S EMAIL ADDRESS

DESCRIPTION

DESCRIPTION

This Sources Sought is issued solely for information and planning purposes – it does not constitute a Request for Quote (RFQ) or a promise to issue an RFQ in the future. This request does not commit the Government to contract for any supply or service whatsoever. Further, the Department of Veterans Affairs is not at this time seeking quotes and will not accept unsolicited quotes.

Offerors are advised that the U.S. Government will not pay for any information or administrative costs incurred in response to this SS; all costs associated with responding to this SS will be solely at the interested party’s expense. Not responding to this SS does not preclude participation in any future solicitation, if any is issued.

**Please be brief and confine your responses to the questions asked. ** Work shall be performed at the Contractors facility.

Responses:

If interested in responding to an official solicitation, please provide:

A. Your Company name, DUNS, POC, Socioeconomic Status. If SDVOSB, please provide an SBA Certification B. The government is considering using NAICS (611430). Please provide your suggested NAICS and any rationale, if different from 611430.

C. Up to two-page capability statement (include any info on past contracts).

D. Do you have a GSA Schedule offering the required services?

E. In the event a solicitation is issued will your company provide a quote?

Email all responses to:

Contracting Officer Wanda Y. Edwards Wanda.Edwards@va.gov and Contract Specialist Dante.Ruiz@va.gov Due by January 8, 2024, by 12:00PM ET.

Disclaimer:

The Government is collecting this information for Market Research purposes only. Your response to this RFI, does not guarantee a contract or ability to compete for a contract.

Sources Sought Notice Sources Sought Notice

Sources Sought Notice

INSTITUE FOR LEARNING, EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT (ILEAD)

PERFORMANCE WORK STATEMENT (PWS)

Accredited Clinical Online Courseware

A. GENERAL

1. Title of Contract: VHA Clinical Online Training Courseware

2. Description of Services: The contractor shall deliver and maintain a minimum of 500 accredited clinical online courses for 143,000+ Veterans Health Administration (VHA) healthcare providers and staff. Courseware shall be made accessible to VHA staff employees through the VA’s Talent Management System (TMS). The TMS is an online, interactive learning management system (LMS) that provides training to users throughout the VA. It is on the internet and can be accessed from any computer.

3. Scope: The contractor shall provide all labor, supervision, and other resources required to deliver commercial off the shelf and online courseware, i.e., Troubleshooting user-related issues launching/completing the content, exam re-sets, for VHA clinical staff employees including physicians, dentists, nurses, therapists, dietitians, psychologists, social workers, pharmacists, counselors, radiologist, optometrist, and medical technicians. The contractor shall provide a minimum of 500 online accredited clinical courses that cover multiple clinical disciplines and clinical programs. Courses will be integrated with the VA’s TMS and will be recorded to track training completion. Courses shall be accessible to VHA staff 24 hours per day every day, including weekends and holidays. Clinical courses will focus primarily on accredited national agencies, and with additional state agencies such as but not limited to California Board of Nursing, California Board of Behavioral Sciences (CABBS) and New York State Education Department State Board of Social Work (NYSEDSW) as applicable, for appropriate continuing education credit. Courses shall contain accredited content for a national VHA audience ranging from a wide array of clinical disciplines, such as laboratory science, dental, dietetics, nursing, occupational and physical therapy, physicians, psychology, radiologic technology, respiratory therapy, social work, surgical technology, pharmacy, central sterile, counseling, emergency management, medical records, nurse aide, and miscellaneous allied health healthcare professions.

Courses shall be Aviation Industry CBT (computer-based training) Committee (AICC) or Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) and Section 508 compliant. Courses shall have a defined course title, length of time [i.e., hour(s)], description of material to be taught (i.e., syllabi, table of contents, etc.), and whether materials are included (i.e., books, pamphlets, software, etc.). Courseware shall also provide student follow-up/evaluation to ensure knowledge transfer and quality courses and an accredited certificate of completion. Courses shall be 1.0 continuing education credits or more.

4. Background: Courses that contain content that is on the cutting edge as it pertains to the latest changes in treatment modalities, techniques and regulations not only provides a healthcare environment that keeps the patients healthier, but it also helps mitigate risks inherent in the medical profession. Clinical training and certification are required for the Department of Veterans Affairs’ clinicians and is an essential component of the individual provider licensure/certification and competency. The clinical training helps learners achieve Joint Commission accreditation at their facilities based on The Joint Commission (TJC) national standards. The use of a continuous online education system casts the largest potential net to enable the largest percentage of the VA workforce to receive technical and professional training. As a result, accredited, online clinical training available to the VA clinicians will lead to improved clinical care and workplace excellence in VHA.

The VHA’s general staffing levels for patient care/clinical professions are composed as roughly defined below:

Table 1:

VHA PATIENT CARE/CLINICAL PROFESSIONS

*Those denoted with an asterisk, the government requires the contractor to provide a minimum of 10 courses specific for that target audience.

**Those denoted with a double asterisk, the government requires the contractor to provide a minimum of 20 courses specific for that target audience.

The contractor shall provide courseware that provides clinical training that covers an array of healthcare professions in a manner that enhances knowledge to clinicians across the VA enterprise. Furthermore, it is imperative the contractor provide an inventory of courses that is not targeted to any one or two professions.

For example: It would not be deemed acceptable if of the contractor’s inventory of 500 proposed courses, 450 were geared for a specific target audience such as nursing. It would be unsatisfactory to provide 50 courses to cover the remaining career fields/target audiences. For instance, in this scenario, it would be unsatisfactory for 90% of the courseware to be geared toward nursing and the remaining 10% to cover the remaining target audiences.

5. General Information/Objectives: The contractor shall meet with the Institute for Learning Education and Development (ILEAD) Program Manager (PM) to discuss project requirements, timelines, milestones, and deliverables within five business days after contract award.

Contractor shall provide learning products that will be launched from the VA Talent Management System (TMS), SAP HCM Suite version B2205. These learning products communicate with TMS using the AICC and/or SCORM communication standards. The contractor shall host all content in conjunction with this procurement on internet-facing webservers. The contractor shall apply the SAP cross-domain communication proxlet on their content server(s).

The contractor shall provide clinical courseware that is built on interactive and active online learning techniques and strategies (courseware that is based strictly on passive learning i.e. text-based content will not be deemed acceptable). Certainly, online based learning depends on computer use, but it is far more than just computer-based education — but in order for optimal learning, a level of participant interactivity is crucial. Interactivity is about the integration of computers into regular teachable lessons. Interactive learning techniques is defined as physical hands-on activities (i.e. educational game, quizzes, puzzles/puzzle piecing, drag and drop responses etc.).

Interactive learning is the opposite of passive learning, which depends on observation. Students need a balanced combination of passive and active learning in order to master concepts. If everything is interactive, students run the risk of being overstimulated, or losing track of the main goals. If teaching is entirely passive, however, students may find their interest and focus declining.

6. Period of Performance: The period of performance shall be one 12-month base period from date of contract award and will include three one-year option periods.

7. Place of Performance: Work shall be performed at the contractor’s site. On occasion the contractor may be required to attend meetings. Meetings will be held telephonically or virtually.

8. Type of Contract: Firm Fixed-Price

9. Specific Tasks and Deliverables

9.1: The contractor shall provide to VHA within 30 calendar days of contract award a minimum of 500 Accredited Clinical Online Courses that include but are not limited to:

9.1.1: At least 500 Accredited Clinical Online Courses that cover at a minimum a multitude of clinical disciplines (see ‘Table 1” above) Deliverable:

· 500 Accredited Clinical Online Courses

9.1.2: Clinical online training courses shall be accredited by national and state agencies for appropriate Continuing Education Unit (CEU) or Continuing Medical Education (CME) credit. Contractor shall provide courseware that provides CEU/CME with at least one national accreditation at a minimum. Additionally, courses will be consistent with The Joint Commission standards to achieve Joint Commission accreditation.

National Accreditations:

In addition to the following State accreditations:

The contractor is responsible for assuring and maintaining professional accreditation for the courses throughout the life of the contract.

9.1.3: Clinical online training courses must be integrated with the VA TMS. Courses shall be available and accessible only through the VA TMS.

9.1.4: VA employees need to be able to access clinical online training courses from TMS using their desktop or remote government furnished computing equipment. The course content will connect within 60 seconds of launch. Courses shall be available 24 hours per day every day, including weekends and holidays.

9.1.5: Course completions shall be automatically reported within 3 business days of completion to CE Broker, the continuing education tracking system for the U.S.

9.1.6: The Contractor shall update the existing courses offered based on updated content information as well as emergent VA training courseware needs (e.g. COVID, Zika virus).

9.2: The contractor shall develop and maintain an effective quality control program to ensure services are performed with minimal disruption and in accordance with this Performance Work Statement.

Deliverable:

· Quality Control Plan 9.3: The contractor shall develop and implement procedures to identify, prevent, and ensure non-recurrence of defective courses, defective system availability, and defective data transfers/ downloads.

Deliverable:

· Process and procedure document

9.4: Contractor shall work with the ILEAD PM and the VHA Clinical Online Training Support Team to provide professional and technical support services via email and telephonically (8:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. Monday - Friday EST) to deliver commercial, off-the-shelf clinical/health care online training courses throughout the entire performance of period.

9.4.1: Contractor shall provide the ILEAD PM and the VHA Clinical Online Training Support Team a point of contact and a clear escalation path for technical issues that require vendor action to achieve resolution. Acknowledgment of request for technical support within 24 hours.

9.5: Contractor shall provide a weekly, cumulative report of usage including number of users trained by discipline, number of courses completed, and credit hours awarded and evaluation results.

9.6: Contractor shall provide a course catalog which is updated monthly and available to participants via the VHA ILEAD Website.

9.7: Contractor shall provide the ILEAD PM on a quarterly basis with online training course data that displays the number of successful and unsuccessful employee access attempts, access times and employee pass and fail rate for each course. Tracking of training completions will be stored on the TMS.

9.8: The contractor shall develop and present a quarterly summary report of findings from the VA employee feedback course evaluation survey for each individual course offering.

9.9: Contractor shall provide a clinical online training course evaluation survey at the end of each individual course offering. The evaluation survey data will be stored on the contractor system. The evaluation data shall contain any applicable post testing information, training evaluation questions/answers and the name and accreditation information of the training participant.

Deliverable

(Not-separately-priced (NSP))

B. CONTRACT AWARD MEETING

The contractor shall not commence performance on the tasks in this PWS until the Contracting Officer Representative (COR) has conducted a kickoff meeting or has advised the contractor that a kickoff meeting is waived.

C. GENERAL REQUIREMENTS

1. For every task, the contractor shall identify in writing all necessary subtasks (if any), associated costs by task, and associated sub-milestone dates. The contractor's subtask structure shall be reflected in the technical proposal and detailed work plan.

2. All written deliverables shall be phrased in layperson language. Statistical and other technical terminology shall not be used without providing a glossary of terms.

D. QUALITY CONTROL

The contractor shall develop and maintain an effective quality control plan to ensure services are performed in accordance with this PWS. The contractor shall develop and implement procedures to identify, prevent, and ensure non-recurrence of defective services. The contractor’s quality control plan is the means that the work complies with the requirements of the contract. As a minimum, the contractor shall develop quality control procedures that address the areas identified below. After acceptance of the quality control plan the contractor shall receive the COR’s acceptance in writing of any proposed change to the Quality Control plan.

Performance Requirements Summary (PRS) The deliverables below, the Performance Standard is defined as work being completed within established timeframes.

· ILEAD Clinical Online Courseware

E. FORMAL ACCEPTANCE OR REJECTION OF DELIVERABLES

The Government will review within five business days each deliverable and provide feedback/comments. The contractor shall have five business days to incorporate feedback/comments and make appropriate revisions. The contractor shall provide the revised version of each deliverable within three business days to the Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR). The COR will review and determine final acceptance by the Government. The COR will notify the contractor of final acceptance within five business days.

F. CHANGES TO THE PWS

Any changes to this PWS shall be authorized and approved only through written correspondence from the Contracting Officer. A copy of each change will be kept in a project folder along with all other products of the project. Costs incurred by the contractor through the actions of parties other than the Contracting Officer shall be borne by the contractor.

G. CONTRACTOR REPORTING REQUIREMENTS

1. The contractor shall submit a quarterly progress report addressing the status of all active efforts. The official reporting for order compliance shall be these quarterly reports due on the fifth workday. The reports will cover progress made for the prior quarter. At the conclusion of each deliverable listed under section 9, the contractor shall provide a written memorandum documenting deliverable completion.

2. The quarterly progress report shall also identify any problems that may have arisen and an explanation of how each problem was resolved, or where not resolved, a plan for how the problem will be resolved.

3. The contractor shall take minutes of all formal conference calls and/or meetings held with the Program Manager. Copies of these minutes shall be attached to the next quarterly progress report.

4. Quarterly progress reports shall contain the following:

a) Status summary

b) Change request status (new, open, closed since last report)

c) Issue status (new, open, closed since last report)

d) Schedule status

e) Minutes of status meetings

f) Evaluation reports

H. TRAVEL

1. Travel is not anticipated for the performance of this contract.

I. CONFIDENTIALITY AND NONDISCLOSURE

It is agreed that:

1. The preliminary and final deliverables, and all associated working papers, application source code, and other material deemed relevant by VA which have been generated by the contractor in the performance of this contract, are the exclusive property of the U.S. Government and shall be submitted to the Contracting Officer at the conclusion of the contract.

2. The Contracting Officer will be the sole authorized official to release, verbally or in writing, any data, draft deliverables, final deliverables, or any other written or printed materials pertaining to this contract. No information shall be released by the contractor. Any request for information relating to this contract, presented to the contractor, shall be submitted to the Contracting Officer for response.

3. Press releases, marketing material, or any other printed or electronic documentation related to this project, shall not be publicized without the written approval of the Contracting Officer.

J. Contractor Information Security: The Contractor will not have access to any Privacy Protected Information (PPI). Contractor will have access to VHA Information Technology systems (TMS). The contractor shall be set up with contractor accounts in TMS which will be accessed without PIV or access to the VA Network.

K. Government Furnished Information and Equipment:

Government furnished equipment will not be issued, however, the contractor will have access to government information regarding which VHA employees have taken classes and the outcome of each class.