36C24423Q0079.docx

Special Notice Special Notice

GENERAL INFORMATION

Network Contracting Office 4 VA Medical Center 1010 Delafield Road Pittsburgh, PA 15215

POINT OF CONTACT*

Contract Specialist Jacquelyn Mazurek jacquelyn.mazurek@va.gov

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

AGENCY CONTACT’S EMAIL ADDRESS

EMAIL DESCRIPTION

DESCRIPTION

Notice of Intent to Sole Source

The VA Philadelphia Healthcare System, 3900 Woodland Avenue, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104 has a request for Clintegrity 360 Software. The Philadelphia VA has only located one vendor capable of providing the requested services and intends to issue a sole source contract to that vendor.

This notice is being posted so that any unknown vendors who are capable of providing this item may come forward and express their interest and capability in providing Clintegrity 360 Software to Philadelphia VA Medical Center. If your company/organization is capable of providing the required item, provide your entities capability statement to Jacquelyn Mazurek, Contract Specialist by 11/02/2022 12 NOON EST via email to Jacquelyn.mazurek@va.gov. In addition to your capability statement also provide any applicable distribution agreements regarding Clintegrity 360 Software, the size and socioeconomic status of your company, and any other information pertinent to this requirement.

***This is not a request for quote, no quotes should be sent in response to this notice.

Statement of Work

Clintegrity 360 VA Chart Complete

VACC was developed and is supported by Nuance Communications and Document Storage Systems, Inc. (DSS), software development companies specializing in electronic medical record systems and business administrative programs for the Veterans Health Administration (VHA). Experts in VISTA/CPRS integration and business rules, DSS is a Class-1 provider of software to the VHA system with over 830 installations at VA medical centers and four national purchases with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). National contracts include Release of Information, Dental Record Manager, Encoder Product Suite, and Health Eligibility Center Scanning Solution. Nuance Communications, Inc. and DSS utilize the official VA Office of Information and Technology (OI) sanctioned communication technology, RPC Broker, which provides real-time integration into the VistA packages. Additionally, DSS MUMPS and CPRS routines are used to integrate into the VA modules.

Nuance Communications, Inc. has a national contract with the VA (GS-36F-0171L) for software used for all coding, compliance, billing, and auditing of patient encounters with full integration to VistA. VACC is an optional module on the Clintegrity 360 platform, available for purchase by individual facilities or VISNS. This module is the record management tool, known as VACC or VA Chart Completion, to track deficient or missing documentation. Therefore, the integration with VistA is present and no additional hardware or interfaces need to be procured.

VA facilities have indicated the following limitations along with the labor-intensive manual process they would otherwise use:

· The existing Incomplete Record Tracking (IRT) module in VistA is not an effective module and does not have the reporting capabilities of the COTS system evaluated. VACC has the reporting capabilities needed such as performance measures and the ability to trend historical data by facility, service care line or specific provider. Reports can be created ad hoc or pre-programmed and can be provided in a fraction of time compared to current manual processes. Aggregating historical data is manual and very time consuming and nearly impossible although often requested by Providers, Chiefs, and Administration, for provider performance review and credentialing.

· The current IRT system is not able to provide a single list of all delinquencies for a particular provider or to report service specific data. All required reporting of the medical records delinquencies is the result of drilling into several databases, importing/exporting data into Excel, and copying and pasting for a final presentation. For the monthly report of delinquencies to the Medical Executive Committee (required reporting for The Joint Commission), this report creation takes one person one day. For the weekly update reporting, the creation of this report takes one person one half of one day. As such, any requests for immediate reporting cannot be provided. This includes providing delinquency rate data to Joint Commission surveyors upon their arrival.

· The lack of easy reporting of chart deficiency trends hampers the ability for process improvement. This was apparent in the past at VA medical centers when the inability to quickly identify incomplete records documentation prevented the timely billing and collections of reimbursable cases. VACC is very helpful and effective in meeting the 7-day close out.

· VACC interacts with VistA via an interface written by Document Storage Systems (DSS), a company with extensive knowledge of VA software and government practices with no capability problems.

· VACC is in use in several VA production environments.

· VA Chart Complete provides inpatient analysis (easy, flexible detailed reporting and trending reports, for example).

· VA Chart Complete, utilizes the Clintegrity 360 platform, which will centralize the database to one more secure, more reliable, centrally managed database, leveraging the investment in Clintegrity 360 (already deployed as part of the VA’s Encoder Product Suite) and provides an intuitive, compact GUI and reporting flexibility enhancements.

The Clintegrity 360 VA Chart Complete platform, which will allow for automated deficiency tracking by utilizing the Clintegrity 360 platform, is currently used with the Encoder Product Suite (EPS).

The VACC solution will provide time savings, extensive reporting, and provider communication tools. This is a tool not solely to be used by the HIMS, but by other stakeholders such as Credentialing, DSS, and Quality Management for their data needs related to the timely completion of medical records and provider performance data.

Due to the existing integration to VistA, VACC offers robust reporting capabilities which are more flexible, than the current IRT or manual processes. Incomplete records have a significant negative impact on patient care as well as administrative processes. The ability to monitor and report on incomplete records in a timely and accurate manner will allow for improvement performance and potentially patient care and safety. Additionally, it provides a reporting tool for performance measures.

The licenses of Nuance Communication’s VA Chart Complete (VACC) are needed to assist with our comprehensive approach to VA data management technology within the HIMS department. A tool is needed for effective deficiency tracking via a system integrated with VistA which will provide accurate, concurrent, and retrospective analysis of medical record signature completion statuses. The VACC system helps to monitor the timeliness of completion of the electronic documentation. The primary goal of the VACC software is to aid the HIMS department and the facility’s revenue collection process by eliminating laborious manual review for documentation and ensuring supporting medical documentation is complete for coding/billing.

The following outlines software features experienced by many HIMS Departments using Nuance’s VA Chart Complete.

· Contains real-time, clinical note, deficiency analysis capabilities for HIMS to assist with chart completion and will form the basis for mandatory compliance reporting.

· Allows for effective and user-friendly electronic communication between HIMS and clinical staff.

· Presents data into reports for trending, benchmarking, and tracking for provider education and documentation improvement which can be used by Quality Management and Compliance to assist with staff performance improvement and Credentialing for physician profiling and performance data.

· Provides the appropriate number of user licenses allowing widespread use of the system where needed.

· Centrally managed updates and reporting at the VISN level.

Some of the key components of the products are as follows:

Automation

· Through VistA-integration, substantial time savings and better monitoring of the quality of documentation can be realized within the HIMS department.

· Auto-creation of History & Physical, Admit Note, Operative Reports, and Discharge Summary deficiencies.

· Auto-tracking of unlimited deficiencies entered TIU.

· Auto-completion of deficiencies as providers sign their documents.

· Automatic notifications for defined interface events, such as failure to log in due to expired access/verify code for easier technical support.

NOTE: Significant time savings benefits over current VA processes involving manual “look up” within TIU or CPRS to see whether providers have completed documentation. VACC software eliminates manual processes associated with most deficiencies. This product will also eliminate the need to manually create monthly and weekly reporting and provide automatic and ad hoc reporting capabilities to meet the need.

Reporting

· Easy, on-demand reporting allows HIMS to provide deficiency information as needed for Joint Commission or other regulatory visits and CPRS Committee (Medical Records Committee, weekly dashboard). This helps eliminate the need for HIMS to keep separate spreadsheets and/or “work around” current available reports. These reports help provide the control to improve documentation processes.

· All reports have selection criteria to allow HIMS to easily configure the desired report results. Data can be sorted based on options such as chart age, provider department/rank/specialty, deficiency type and status (i.e., only report on History and Physical documentation with missing signatures)

· Ability to report at the VISN level

· Ability to do historical reporting and trending. The Provider Historical templates allow HIMS to look at the past performance of providers and report on their timeliness of record completion. This eliminates the need for HIMS to keep paper copies of past reports to be able to monitor the provider’s history and accountability.

· Reports can be scheduled to automatically generate at user specified intervals.

· Ability to report on measures HIMS has taken to get providers to complete their documentation (i.e., letters sent, phone calls). This eliminates need to manually log this information.

· Extensive audit trail and productivity reports are included.

Provider Communication

· The VACC Letter Writing tool enhances communication with Medical Staff allowing HIMS to easily inform providers of outstanding deficiencies. Details of the physician’s incomplete records can be automatically imported into letters.

· HIMS can configure unlimited types of letters. Through the configuration settings, the VACC software will automatically select the appropriate provider that should receive a letter (i.e., letter generated only for Surgery department attending physicians with Operative Reports to sign). This alleviates HIMS staff from having to manually determine who receives a letter.

· Letters can be scheduled to run ensuring communication with the physicians is provided at regular intervals.

Information Technology requirements

OI&T will maintain the software through updates and scheduled patches provided by the vendor approximately 6-8 times per year. These updates are combined with the updates for the Clintegrity 360 Coding and Compliance software, and therefore there is no additional update needed beyond what is already being done to support the Clintegrity 360 platform today for Nuance Communication’s Encoder Product Suite Clintegrity 360 components.

1. Seamless integration with VistA

a. VistA integration using Document Storage Systems' VistA Gateway

b. Single VistA sign-on

c. Automatic deficiency creation and continual monitoring

d. Unlimited, user-defined document categories

e. Automatic update of deficiency categories' status levels

f. Complies with HIPAA regulations

g. Web browser interface provides an intuitive look and ease of navigation

h. Outpatient and inpatient medical record deficiency tracking

2. Reporting

a. Quick and easy reporting with report templates that include extensive selection criteria

b. Provide Joint Commission trending information as well as provider performance monitoring reports for both current and historical deficiency completion data

c. Detailed historical record completion information can be reported for one, multiple or all providers and departments

d. Aging flexibility provides ability to age deficiencies or charts by admit, discharge or procedure date while also permitting forgiving of provider vacations/leaves of absence

e. Support medical staff peer review activities by providing vital data for use in the reappointment and re-credentialing processes.

f. Support resident documentation tracking by linking directly to VistA/TIU for signers and co-signers.

Today, Nuance Communications still provides the only VistA-integrated chart deficiency solution. Nuance’s proactive product improvement approach has introduced many improvements recently, including Executive Summary standard report enhancement requested by the Birmingham VA and other report refinements. The newly created VACC Product Advisory Council (VPAC), which includes multiple members from VA facilities currently utilizing VACC, meets approximately once per month to assist Nuance Communications focus on client-centric product improvements.

Records Management Language for Contracts The following standard items relate to records generated in executing the contract and should be included in a typical Electronic Information Systems (EIS) procurement contract:

1. Citations to pertinent laws, codes, and regulations such as 44 U.S.C chapters 21, 29, 31 and 33; Freedom of Information Act (5 U.S.C. 552); Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. 552a); 36 CFR Part 1222 and Part 1228.

1. Contractor shall treat all deliverables under the contract as the property of the U.S. Government for which the Government Agency shall have unlimited rights to use, dispose of, or disclose such data contained therein as it determines to be in the public interest.

1. Contractor shall not create or maintain any records that are not specifically tied to or authorized by the contract using Government IT equipment and/or Government records.

1. Contractor shall not retain, use, sell, or disseminate copies of any deliverable that contains information covered by the Privacy Act of 1974 or that which is generally protected by the Freedom of Information Act.

1. Contractor shall not create or maintain any records containing any Government Agency records that are not specifically tied to or authorized by the contract.

1. The Government Agency owns the rights to all data/records produced as part of this contract.

1. The Government Agency owns the rights to all electronic information (electronic data, electronic information systems, electronic databases, etc.) and all supporting documentation created as part of this contract. Contractor must deliver sufficient technical documentation with all data deliverables to permit the agency to use the data.

1. Contractor agrees to comply with Federal and Agency records management policies, including those policies associated with the safeguarding of records covered by the Privacy Act of 1974. These policies include the preservation of all records created or received regardless of format [paper, electronic, etc.] or mode of transmission [e-mail, fax, etc.] or state of completion [draft, final, etc.].

1. No disposition of documents will be allowed without the prior written consent of the Contracting Officer. The Agency and its contractors are responsible for preventing the alienation or unauthorized destruction of records, including all forms of mutilation. Willful and unlawful destruction, damage or alienation of Federal records is subject to the fines and penalties imposed by 18 U.S.C. 2701. Records may not be removed from the legal custody of the Agency or destroyed without regard to the provisions of the agency records schedules.

1. Contractor is required to obtain the Contracting Officer's approval prior to engaging in any contractual relationship (sub-contractor) in support of this contract requiring the disclosure of information, documentary material and/or records generated under, or relating to, this contract. The Contractor (and any sub-contractor) is required to abide by Government and Agency guidance for protecting sensitive and proprietary information.

Please see the attached Intent to Sole Source document.

End of Document

Special Notice