36C24E21R0030_1.docx

SUBJECT*

Research Support Brigham & Womens

GENERAL INFORMATION

Veterans Health Administration Regional Procurement Office (RPO) East 323 North Shore Drive, Suite 500 Pittsburgh PA 15212-5319

POINT OF CONTACT*

lynn.portman@va.gov

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

AGENCY’S URL

URL DESCRIPTION

AGENCY CONTACT’S EMAIL ADDRESS

EMAIL DESCRIPTION

Special Notice Special Notice

DESCRIPTION

Special Notice

The Department of Veterans Affairs, Salt Lake City VA Medical Center, intends to negotiate on a sole source basis, pursuant to FAR 6.302-1, with Brigham & Women’s Hospital in support of VA research study, “VA Quantitative Quality Assurance (VA-QQA) MRI for Brain Health”, “CHIPS: Clinical Health Imaging Portability Standards for VA MRI”, and “Neuroimaging Data Harmonization for LIMBIC-CENC”. The Psychiatry Neuroimaging Lab at Brigham and Women’s have been developing a model-free dMRI harmonization method which can be used to harmonize the “raw dMRI signal” (and not just a particular dMRI measure of interest) across sites. This framework estimates an efficient mapping across scanners despite differences in scanner parameters (including different number of gradients, b-values and spatial resolution). The “Neuroimaging Data Harmonization for LIMBIC-CENC”is a standardization implementation of the VA imaging centers for the brain. The VA currently scans 500,000 scans a year on veterans and this framework established at Brigham and Women’s Hopsital estimates an efficient mapping across scanners despite differences in scanner parameters. The LIMBIC-CERN systems must be used for consistency in research results as key diagnostic categories in MRI brain health, such as detecting TBI-related damage in brain tracts across sites, instruments, body space, and time, correcting the 37 year absence of calibration in MRI. This is a notice of intent is not a request for competitive proposals; however, any responsible source who believes it is capable of meeting the requirement may submit a capability statement to the contracting office no later than July 16th, 12PM, EST. Interest/capability statements may be sent to Lynn Portman at lynn.portman@va.gov. No telephone responses will be accepted. A determination not to compete the proposed requirement based upon the responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government.

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