Attachment_A_Technical_Proposal_Template_Amendment_01.docx

Technical Proposal Template

Please see Section L.7 – Required page limitations and formatting. As a reminder the technical proposal shall be limited to 120 pages not including appendices. Offerors shall adhere to the table numbering and page limits detailed in the Technical Proposal Instructions Criteria 1-3. Where not otherwise specified, offerors may decide how to allocate the page allotment across their technical proposal.

Cover Page(s) The cover page(s) shall be in the template provided below:

Please note that there is no minimum or limit to the total number of “partner organizations” to be included on this cover page table. Even though there are multiple types listed in the table below, there is no requirement to have at least one of each type. Should a partner qualify for more than one category, please list them in the category that best represents their proposed role in ACTION 4.

All content including the instructions and footnotes shall remain in the technical proposal. Offerors shall not change the table headers. Offerors shall unhighlight the amendment text when preparing their proposal using the template.

AHRQ-20-10005

Accelerating Change and Transformation in Organizations and Networks (ACTION) IV IDIQ NAME of Prime Organization:

Business Address of Prime Organization:

DUNS Number of Prime Organization:

Author(s) of the technical proposal:

PI: Name, Email Address Partnership Mission, Niche, and/or Goals: (No more than 300 words) States in Which Health Care Provider Organizations Are Located:

Partner names and types:

Health Care Providers

· ABC Company/Organization

· …insert more bulleted names of companies/organizations as needed

· ABC Company/Organization

· …as needed

· ABC Company/Organization

· …as needed

· ABC Company/Organization

· …as needed

· ABC Company/Organization

· …as needed

· ABC Company/Organization

· …as needed

Health Services Research Organizations

· ABC Company/Organization

· ABC University

Other Advocacy, Quality, and Safety Organizations

· ABC Company/Organization

· ABC Company/Organization

Technical Support/Other Expertise

· ABC Company/Organization

· ABC Company/Organization

Total # Organizations:

Criterion 1 – Prime Organization Capabilities

1.1 Conducting work under Federal Contracts/Task Orders.

Please provide the following information about at least five and no more than 10 Federally-funded contracts/task orders most relevant to ACTION 4 for which the Prime Organization was the Lead Contractor. Please use a check mark to identify whether the contract/task order: (Column E.) required OMB Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) approval, (Column F.) involved field based research, (Column G.) included spread activities, or (Column H.) required cross site/cross organization coordination.

Table 1.1

F. Involved Field Based Research?

G. Included spread activities?

Was your company the Prime Contractor or Subcontractor? If subcontractor, what percentage of the work was done by your company?

1.

2.

3.

4.

5. (add rows as necessary)

*May still be active but shall have been initiated in the past five years and must be federally funded contracts. Projects initiated prior to 12/2014 shall not be included in this table.

Additional Narrative for Table 1.1: For any three of the contracts/task orders listed above, please provide the following information (maximum of two pages for all three projects, excluding Table 1.1):

1. Line entry number;

1. Contract Purpose/Objectives;

1. List of up to four key tasks;

1. List of up to three high level deliverables;

1. Did deliverables have to be compliant with Section 508 of the Americans with Disabilities Act (yes/no)?

1. Did the research involve human subjects and require Human Subjects Protections? Was either internal or external Institutional Review Board approval required (yes/no)?

· If none of the projects required IRB review, please provide two paragraphs demonstrating your awareness of the conditions under which IRB review would be required and what steps you would take to secure IRB approval.

1.2 Performing Field-Based Delivery System Research within Health Care Delivery Settings

1.2a: Provide the following information for at least two and no more than four contracts/task orders listed under Column F in Table 1.1[footnoteRef:1] that demonstrate prior experience with field-based research within health care delivery settings. Use the following bullets as subheads; maximum three pages per project: [1: Do not describe projects whose principal purpose was spread of findings or products; these will be described elsewhere (see Table 1.3 and additional narrative).

· Line entry number from Table 1.1;

· Name of Project Principal Investigator (PI);

· Reason for Highlighting this Project (e.g., specific ways in which it relates to one or more ACTION 4 SOW objectives; emerging objectives; or role);

· Project Goal/Purpose;

· Research Setting/s;

· Research Questions;

· Methods;

· Key Findings;

· High Level Deliverables/Products (please distinguish any products that had to be compliant with SECTION 508 of the Americans with Disabilities Act);

· Intended Audience(s);

· Impact on practice, policy, or patient outcomes (if known); and

· Vehicles or methods used to disseminate research findings or share knowledge about tools or products that resulted from the project

1.2 b: Discuss specific, unanticipated challenges that you have encountered in conducting research on two contracts/task orders identified under Column F in Table 1.1. For each one, provide the following information, using whatever format you find most suitable; maximum two pages across all challenges:

· Line entry number from Table 1.1;

· Nature of the challenge (provide minimal background about the project necessary for understanding the challenge);

· Threat to project (If not clear from above);

· Steps taken to remedy the problem;

· Results;

· Generalizable lesson/s learned (if applicable); and

· Steps taken to anticipate and/or prevent recurrence and mitigation strategy.

1.3 Managing projects that use diverse methods, approaches, vehicles, and strategies to maximize the likelihood of broad and meaningful dissemination and implementation of evidence-based interventions beyond simply publishing research reports in peer-reviewed journals.

Table 1.3: Complete the following table for each of up to three projects identified under Column G in Table 1.1 as having included spread activities. The spread activities can have been conducted by the prime, or by a subcontractor managed by the proposed prime. No single table should exceed two pages.

Line entry number from Table 1.1

Organization Responsible for Spread Activities;

Name of Lead for Spread tasks

Nature of Product or Research Finding Being Disseminated/Spread

Targeted Audience(s)

Spread Activities (include brief descriptions of methods, vehicles, strategies used);

Any Other Organizations involved? (if yes, name those organizations and role played)

Evidence of Impact on Practice, Policy and/or Patient Outcomes (if known)

Narrative for Table 1.3: Describe up to three potential challenges to achieving uptake of findings or products for improving the delivery of care and ways you would propose for addressing them. Limit discussion to two paragraphs per challenge discussed.

***Section 1.1 - 1.3 are subject to external peer review and are worth 25 of 40 under Prime Organization Capabilities***

1.4 Managing complex projects involving coordination across multiple, diverse sites and partners/participants.

Table 1.4: Complete the following for each of up to three projects identified under Column H in Table 1.1 as having required cross site/cross organization coordination; table should not exceed one page per project.

b) Specific Roles and Responsibilities, c) Locations (city/state) of Collaborating Organizations and/or Research Sites

Additional Narrative for Table 1.4: Based on your experience with complex, cross-site collaborations, briefly discuss:

1. Your preferred methods and tools for project management and coordination and the benefits experienced using them, citing at least one specific example for each.

1. Up to three specific challenges encountered in managing multi-site, multi-actor projects and methods used to address them (if these examples come from projects other than those listed above, please state the project purpose and the names and responsibilities of the collaborating or subcontracting organizations).

1.5 Additional Prime Organization Capabilities Proposal Instructions:

a. Some ACTION 4 Task Orders may call for the active engagement of operational leaders from healthcare systems in the design and implementation of proposed studies and interventions, assessment of their value or dissemination of their results. Succinctly address readiness to support this objective by:

i. Describing any steps taken or groundwork laid in support of this objective, including by documenting any commitments from operational leaders with discussions of the roles they will be expected to play.

ii. Describing the steps to actively engage operational leaders on future task orders; fruitful roles they might play, and how their perspectives will be gleaned; and providing evidence of the likelihood of their meaningful participation when needed. (Evidence may include, but is not limited to, examples of such engagement in implementation research projects, letters attesting to their understanding of the importance and value to their organizations of their participation in work of this kind).

iii. Describing the challenges of meaningfully engaging operational leaders and steps to mitigate them.

iv. Referencing the projects in Table 1.1. offerors shall provide a narrative that addresses:

i. Understanding of the Paperwork Reduction Act,

ii. Section 508 accessibility requirements,

iii. Project management ability for Human Subjects Protection requirements;

iv. Demonstrated ability to obtain Institutional Review Board approval.

If none of the projects in Table 1.1 required OMB Clearance under the Paperwork Reduction Act, please provide either: (a) a list of no more three projects that you oversaw that did require clearance and brief description of one of them; or, (b) two paragraphs demonstrating your awareness of: the conditions under which Clearance must be sought; the types of issues that OMB considers in its review; the main components of a Clearance Package. If none of the projects included deliverables that had to be compliant with Section 508 of the Americans with Disabilities Act, please briefly describe (no more than two paragraphs) how you assured those deliverables were made broadly accessible to the public, including individuals with disabilities.

b. Given that the number of Task Orders issued will vary considerably from year to year based on appropriations, use no more than one page to discuss methods or mechanisms to maintain the interest and engagement of Member Organizations throughout the period of performance and what evidence exists that these mechanisms will work? What non-financial ways will you support the Partnerships and keep members engaged?

c. For three of the projects identified in Table 1.1, describe the approach that the proposed Prime organization used to develop and deliver IT products, websites, and outputs that complied with the requirements of a) Federal Information Security Management Act of 2014 (FISMA of 2014), and b) DHHS Information Security and Privacy policies as well as a high technical understanding of federal Healthcare computing environments, ion, cloud architecture, and cloud based technologies and possess the knowledge to address data/computing challenges and requirements. Please refer to Attachment D for more information.

i. If none of the projects required knowledge of FISMA of 2014 or DHHS Information Security and Privacy policies, please provide either (a) a list of projects completed that did require this knowledge or (b) two paragraphs demonstrating awareness of the conditions under which this knowledge is applicable.

Criterion 2 – Partnership Capacities and Resources Provide the following information regarding proposed Partnership Composition, Capacities and Resources, including which proposed Member Organizations have signaled support for the Partnership:

1. Members that are Healthcare Providers or affiliated with a Healthcare Provider or Health System

1. Members that are neither Healthcare Providers nor are affiliated with Healthcare Provider Organizations

TOTAL # MEMBER ORGANIZATIONS

Table 2.2 Information about characteristics of institutional/ancillary healthcare provider organizations or those affiliated with a healthcare provider/system (from 2.1., row a)[footnoteRef:2] [2: Omit Example XYZ Health system GACH: General Acute Care Hospitals, LTCH: Long-term Care Hospitals, SNF/NF: Skilled Nursing Facilities/Nursing Facilities, BH: Behavioral health, ASC: Ambulatory Surgery Centers, FQHC: Federally Qualified Health Centers, CHC: Community Health Centers.]

Name of System (States/Regions)

Add lines as necessary

# Physicians [footnoteRef:3] [3: Physicians in practices owned/managed by system vs. independent with privileges]

1. Managed/employed by system

1. Not employed by system but privileged to practice

# Nurses (RNs and APNS[footnoteRef:4]) [4: Registered Nurses and Advanced Practice Nurses]

1. Managed/employed by system

1. Not employed by system but privileged to practice

Integrated Delivery System[footnoteRef:5]? [5: Integrated Delivery Systems are networks of organizations that provides or arranges to provide a coordinated continuum of services to a defined population and is willing to be held clinically and fiscally accountable for the outcomes and health status of the population served.]

(yes/no) Learning Health Care System[footnoteRef:6] [6: Learning Health Systems (also called Learning Health Care Systems and Learning Health Organizations) are health systems that aligns clinical informatics, patient-clinician partnerships/ patient and family engagement, incentives, and culture to promote the routine delivery of evidence-based care and enable continuous and real-time improvement in both the effectiveness and efficiency of care.]

(yes/no)

1. 250

0. 800

0. 25

Add lines as necessary

https://innovation.cms.gov/initiatives/#views=models&stg=participants%20announced,ongoing

Add lines as necessary

Safety Net System[footnoteRef:7] (Yes/No) [7: Health Systems are organizations of health care providers that are contractually affiliated with one another or owned by the same organization.]

Percent of patients served with

a) Medicare

b) Medicaid

c) Self-Pay

a) Age 18 and under

b) Age 60 and over Percent of patients served that identify as non-White

Add lines as necessary

Headquarters Location: City/State Designated small business: Yes/No

Health Services Research Organizations, including those that are University-based

· (Specify type) add lines as necessary

Other NON PROVIDER Healthcare Organizations, e.g., Advocacy, Quality, Stakeholder Organizations (e.g. professional/trade associations, patient advocacy organizations; employers; insurers; QIOs etc.)

· (Specify type) add lines as necessary

State or Local/Community Social Service Organizations

· (Specify type) add lines as necessary

Technical Support/Other Expertise including communications, web design, IT/EHR vendor, etc.

· (Specify type) add lines as necessary

Other

· (Specify type) add lines as necessary

TOTAL # NON-PROVIDER MEMBER ORGS – should be same as number in 2.1.b (including Prime if Prime is not a healthcare provider)

2.8 Partnership Organizations’ Capacities, Resources and Expertise Please complete Table 2.8 with the names of all Member Organizations accounted for in table 2.1 titled “Partnership Composition—Total Number of Member Organizations” (you do not need to complete the table for the Prime Organization). Wherever possible, and for all partners with more than 20 Member Organizations (i.e. Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania, having more than 20 organizational members, shall be collapsed to a single entity), combine multiple organizations of the same type (e.g. hospitals; trade associations) within a single entry.

Table 2.8 Member Organization Name (Indicate (N) New Collaboration formed for the purposes of your proposal or (E) for Existing Collaboration).

Reasons for inclusion in Partnership (e.g., specific mission; capacity to shape health care delivery; specific resources, capacities, skill sets; expertise aligned with AHRQ objectives; other)

Most recent example of Prime working with existing collaboration

Additional narrative for Table 2.8

a. Briefly describe what makes your Partnership uniquely qualified to support the scope of ACTION 4. Please take the opportunity to address:

i. how your partners’ (Member Organizations’) strengths and interests support and complement each other (including strengths that have not been evident from responses provided elsewhere in your proposal);

ii. how the Partnership builds on existing relationships and collaborations;

iii. what capacities the Partnership will draw on to flexibly and expeditiously respond to emergent or otherwise unanticipated needs for specialized skills or additional expertise, staffing or other resources; and

iv. the rationale for the composition of your partnership, addressing the specific types and total number of organizations you have included. Address issues relating to tradeoffs between need for breadth of expertise and burdens of managing a large Partnership.

b. Briefly describe your Partnership’s expertise, interest in, and capacity to conduct research, quality improvement, or dissemination/implementation projects relating to two of the four emerging objectives and new role (i.e National Test Collaborative) described in the Statement of Work. Include in your answer a discussion of:

i. partners/Member Organizations who bring relevant expertise or capacities and the nature of their relevant work and/or expected contributions (you do not need to repeat any relevant information/discussion from your answer to question (a))

ii. potential contributions (i.e. types of expertise and involvement that are envisioned) from organizations which have not been engaged as formal partnership members, but which you expect to be able to nimbly reach to conduct work relating to one or more of these objectives. Explain the basis for your confidence that you will be able to involve these organizations on the fast-turnaround-basis required for responses to Request for Task Orders (RFTOs) (e.g. past collaborations? Existing organizational affiliation? Other?).

2.9 Nature of collaborations with Member Organizations

For each proposed Member Organization named in Table 2.8 with whom you have a history of past collaboration, briefly discuss the nature of the most recent (within past five years) collaboration/s, describing:

· Name of Member Organization

· Member Organizational roles and responsibilities

· Nature of the collaboration

· Funder/funding mechanism

2.10 Available Data Bases: please provide the following information for innovative data bases from Prime and Member Organizations that would be available to inform ACTION 4 projects (e.g. administrative; clinical; claims; survey). Both proprietary data and merged data sets that enable the quantitative testing of theoretical constructs (i.e. Andersen model of health services use, socioecological model(s), health behavior modeling) will be considered. An example of such a merged data set that should be included as a data asset would be National Health interview Survey Data merged with CMS claims data merged with Housing and Urban Development administrative data; or, publicly available data that have been transformed to make them easily usable in research (i.e. National Directory of Drug and Alcohol Abuse Treatment Facilities (publically available in PDF form) transformed into a SAS, Stata, or R file with geocoded addresses.

Public use data sets (i.e American Communities Survey, National Survey on Drug Use and Health, Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, or other publically available survey data that have not been transformed to make them useful for research, or, merged with other data (i.e. databases that have to be purchased), do not need to be listed.

· Name of Sponsoring Organization

· Description of Available Data Base (name of data set or hybrid merge (e.g. does it contained merged data such as HUD data merged with CMS data? Marketscan data?)

· Member of a Health Information Exchange? (Y/N)

· Number of covered lives; claims; survey respondents; in data set

· If a restricted dataset, how many researchers have access to the data? Are they key personnel?

· Limitations of data for use in delivery system research (e.g., address issues of comprehensiveness, data use/sharing restrictions, completeness, reliability, validity and timeliness)

· Are the data from an EHR?

Table 2.10 Name of Sponsoring Organization

(Y/N)

2.11 Experience Using Available Data and Analytics

a. Provide up to six examples of Prime and Member Organizations’ use of data to support research that is of interest to operational decision-makers, clinicians or patients because the research a) supports internal quality improvement; and/or b) supports delivery of whole person, 360° care; and/or c) improves understanding of social determinants of health. AHRQ is particularly interested in Partnership experience with measure sets such as HEDIS, CAHPS, HSOPS, and the AHRQ Quality Indicators[footnoteRef:8]. For each one, describe [8: HEDIS: The Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set; CAHPS: Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems; HSOPS: The Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture.]

· The organization that performed the research;

· The types of data and analytic methods that were utilized;

· Findings; and

· Where results were published or made available to the public (if appropriate)

b. Address the following items; provide a total of up to three experiences for each.

· Discuss up to three experiences that the Prime or a Member Organization has had in using registries and/or advanced analytics (including machine learning) and/or other innovative methods to address some aspect of individual or population health. For each experience, address:

· the organization that performed the research;

· the problem or question that was being addressed;

· the data and method(s) that were used; and

· a synopsis of your findings and any limitations.

· Discuss up to three experiences that the Prime or a Member Organization has had in working with current data standards and Application Programming Interfaces (API). For each one describe:

· the organization that performed the research;

· the standard or API that was used and what necessitated its use; and

· challenges experienced in using the standard or API.

***Section 2.10 - 2.11 are subject to external peer review and are worth 5 of 20 under Partnership Capacities and Resources***

2.12 Access to Diverse Target Audiences

Complete the following table to indicate four key target audiences to whom the Partnership (Prime and Member Organizations) can provide access and outreach. Target audiences are individuals or organizations that shape and influence care delivery, and/or that can act as “spread agents” and can include, but are not limited to: providers, insurers, purchasers/employers, policymakers, or consumers/patients.

Table 2.12 Prime or Member Organization Name Target Audience

Relationship of Prime or Member Organization to Target Audience Examples of past engagement of target audience by Member Organization (include purpose and vehicle/mechanism)

Add lines as necessary

2.13 Dissemination Capabilities of Member Organizations

Complete the following table for any Member Organizations with experience in using diverse methods, approaches, vehicles, and strategies to maximize the likelihood of broad and meaningful spread and uptake of evidence-based interventions. (Complete for a maximum of four projects; one page per project) (Prime Organization expertise in this area should have been included in table 1.3; do not repeat information included in that table).

Table 2.13 Name of Member Organization

Project Title and PI or PD Name

Funder;

Contact Name;

Total Project Cost;

Period of Performance

Nature of Product or Research Finding Being Disseminated/Spread

Targeted Audience/s

Dissemination and Implementation Support (Spread) Activities:

- methods, vehicles, strategies used

- Name/s and Role/s of any collaborating organizations

Evidence of Impact on Practice, Policy and/or Patient Outcomes

2.14 Competency among Member Organizations in synthesizing available evidence, experience and expert opinion on complex interventions. Examples shall be from proposed member organizations. (No need to include Prime capabilities)

a. Provide up to two examples of environmental scans (no more than one page). For each one:

· identify the Lead Investigator/Task Leader, Organization, and Date;

· describe the purpose and target audience of the scan;

· indicate the types of data gathering and analysis techniques used;

· describe any informal interviews or focus groups that were conducted; and

· where available, provide a citation (or web link).

b. Provide up to two examples of evidence syntheses (no more than one page). For each one:

· identify the Lead Investigator/Task Leader, Organization, and Date;

· describe the purpose and target audience of the synthesis;

· describe methods used; Explain how you synthesized and reported on sources that were not amenable to meta-analysis; and

· where available, provide a citation (or web link).

c. Provide up to two examples of summaries of expert or stakeholder views (no more than one page). For each one:

· explain the purpose of the solicitation of expert or stakeholder views;

· describe methods used; and

· where available, provide a citation (or web link).

Criterion 3 - Personnel/Staffing Provide the following information regarding proposed Personnel / Staffing (Criterion 3):

3.1 Personnel qualifications for ACTION 4

Provide Table 3.1 as a biosketch for up to 12 people who shall be assigned to this project; not to exceed two pages per person. The Prime Contractor may present staff of subcontractors and partners within the 12 people. All Key personnel including the Program Director (PD) and Principal Investigator (PI) shall be employees of the Prime Contractor. The academic preparation and years of experience of the Key Personnel shall be bespoke to lead, manage, and direct the work described in the Statement of Work. For each biosketch submitted in the Technical Proposal, provide a CV/resume of no more than 5 pages per individual included in Appendix 1 to the Technical Proposal. Provide the following information, using the following format:

Table 3.1.

Individual’s Name and Academic and/or Technical Credentials

Area(s) of Academic and or Technical Preparation and Expertise[footnoteRef:9] [9: Areas of Academic Preparation: Health services research (including quality and resource measurement), Health care communication and education, Psychometrics, Statistical analysis, Health care finance, Health economics, Behavioral economics, Human Factors Analysis, Behavioral sciences, Implementation Science, Quality Improvement, Organization and management science, Public Health (biostatistics, epidemiology, social and behavioral determinants of health, management sciences, public health problem-solving, computer applications, demography, environmental health, biological sciences, veterinary science, and public health policy), Systems engineering, Health Information Technology (including clinical informatics and standards), Project Management, Database management, Whole person care (patient-centered care, integration of clinical and community care, care coordination, medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, nursing, other clinical focus). Other areas of salient academic preparation may be proposed, including, but not limited to, medical anthropology and global health.]

Designated Labor Class (See Section B.3)

Proposed role(s) in ACTION 4 IDIQ, e.g. lead the overall IDIQ, organize response teams, conduct quantitative research, conduct qualitative research, manage Member Organizations (subcontracts), oversee projects once awarded, and lead tasks.

Key personnel (Yes/No)

Relevant skills sets and experience to execute the work described in the scope of ACTION 4 (include training and years of experience)

Using the line number from Table 1.1, describe five of the most relevant projects on which this individual served, specifically:

a) Individual Role/Title: (e.g. PI, Co-investigator)

b) Brief description of contribution to project

c) % time on project

If a new staff member to the Prime contractor, enter no line number from Table 1.1, but for 5 salient projects describe:

d) dollar value of project

e) whether the project was federally funded

f) whether the project was a grant or a contract.

g) list grant or contract number

List up to five relevant, recent articles, presentations, reports, other products (with citation/ URL/PubMed URL).