Censis JA__Redacted.pdf

CensiTrac Sterile Processing Services Control Number VA-25-00025229

JUSTIFICATION FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION

1. Contracting Activity: Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of Procurement, Acquisition and Logistics Technology Acquisition Center 23 Christopher Way Eatontown, New Jersey 07724

2. Description of Action: The proposed sole source action is to award an Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract for the purchase, installation and sustainment of the CensiTrac Sterile Processing Services (SPS) Instrument Tracking Systems (ITS), hardware components, site assessment, server support, sustainment/ annual maintenance support, training and licenses. Task Orders (TO) associated with this IDIQ shall be awarded on an enterprise, group, or individual basis in accordance with each TO specific requirements. TOs shall be on a firm fixed price basis. The proposed action is to acquire brand name CensiTrac software by Censis Technologies at Veterans Health Agency (VHA) Medical Centers.

3. Description of the Supplies or Services: VHA Office of Sterile Processing requires the purchase, installation and sustainment of CensiTrac SPS ITS at VA medical facilities across the country. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Douglas A. Collins has directed VA to standardize products, workflows, and integrations for VA facilities. CensiTrac is currently deployed in the six sites that are live with the Federal Electronic Health Records (FEHR) and is an already interfaced baseline product that is currently used for the FEHR modernization. VA also requires that the solution interface with the current Electronic Health Records system, and enable and improve the tracking, cleaning, sterilization processing and distribution of Reusable Medical Equipment (RME) within VA medical facilities. An ITS specializes in managing the lifecycle of surgical instruments, ensuring safety and efficiency in healthcare settings. It also specializes in managing surgical instruments and ensuring they are ready and sterile for use to ensure patient safety. The solution must provide the ability to track the location of all RME.

Contract IDIQ TOs will be executed for the purchase of CensiTrac hardware components, software licenses, on-site and remote training, and Disaster Recovery (DR). DR will ensure that CensiTrac SPS ITS is able to perform all or some of its regular services within a designated period of time following any man-made or natural disaster.

The solution should include managing surgical instruments, accountability for instrument set reprocessing and assembly, sterilization records management, competency training and records management, meeting the Sterile Processing Workflow, and standard operating procedures management for sterile processing services. The solution should also be Real-Time Locating System (RTLS) integration ready. Additionally, VA also requires training on the ITS solution for stakeholders and users identified by the Government, and certified personnel to conduct said training.

The total estimated price of this proposed action is and includes a Base Period of 1 year from the date of award, 2 12-month Option Periods, and 1 Optional Task.

4. Statutory Authority: The statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition is 41 U.S.C. 3304(a)(1) as implemented by the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Overhaul VA Deviation 6.103-1 entitled, “Only One Responsible Source and No Other Supplies or Services Will Satisfy Agency Requirements”.

5. Rationale Supporting Use of Authority Cited Above: Brand name CensiTrac provided by Censis is currently installed in all 186 facilities within VHA as of April 1, 2025.

Standards of practice and interfaces to other VA Systems are in the process of being aligned to integrate with CensiTrac. Considering that all VHA facilities already have CensiTrac installed, deviation from CensiTrac to another solution would introduce a non-standardized solution in VHA. Having multiple instrument tracking products provided by multiple manufacturers will cause integration issues, increased training burdens, and hinder the capabilities of Veteran Integrated Services Network (VISN) to aggregate and leverage reporting data. Any alternative ITS will not interface with the existing RTLS Intelligent InSites system or will require additional investment estimated at over and take approximately 12 – 16 months for the development of such an interface. This estimate is based on market research quotes. Additionally, if multiple ITS are present within a VISN, different facilities will have different procedures and training requirements. Also, the VISN will not have the ability to view VISN-wide SPS related data without an additional data integration step. If there are multiple instrument tracking products, those products will not communicate with each other, there will not be a national roll up of data, and both items cannot be connected within the FEHR. Patient care would potentially be impacted by delayed or canceled procedures/surgeries due to the non-transferred data for the request of critical supplies from the FEHR to the ITS.

Additionally, the RTLS/ITS was designed with scalability in mind. By installing a common ITS system in all medical facilities, the VA is positioned both to utilize the tracking capability to improve patient care and to support enterprise-wide reporting.

Retaining CensiTrac avoids re-integration, training, conversion costs, workflow reengineering, and delays in national modernization initiatives.

VA has only one ITS, Censitrac, that interfaces with the current Electronic Health Records (EHR) System. Censis is the only source that has the required access to the proprietary Censitrac software to fulfill this requirement. Additionally, only Censis has personnel who are certified and can provide required training on this solution. Not procuring Censitrac would result in the dilution of nationwide processing standards, which will eventually diminish VA SPSs quality controls, and cause a delay in the rollout and increase the cost of the EHR, due to the requirement to interface with the ITS.

Without Censitrac and the EHR interface, VA is at risk for equipment for procedures being overbooked, cases being incomplete, and for facility preference cards in the EHR not matching the ITS resulting in a higher risk of human error. Overbooking of equipment often leads to longer patient wait times, staff overtime, and burnout, all of which increase operating costs and may result in hasty care, elevating the chance of clinical errors. If cases are incomplete due to missing or incorrectly allocated equipment, patients may experience procedure cancellations or poorly executed procedures, possibly resulting in adverse outcomes such as complications, need for repeat interventions, or delayed treatment. Mismatches between the EHR and ITS, such as is an HTM asset management system and is a supply chain management (SCM) system. Neither the HTM asset management system nor the SCM system can be substituted for an instrument tracking system and cannot be modified to become an ITS system that meets VA’s requirements. An ITS system plays a very specific role in hospital device management. SCM systems are used by clinical engineers, biomedical engineers, IT departments, and healthcare facility managers to manage the procurement, storage, and distribution of supplies and materials across the healthcare facility and a HTM asset management system is a specialized asset management system designed to manage the lifecycle of healthcare IT equipment whereas an ITS system specializes in managing surgical instruments and ensuring they are ready and sterile for use to ensure patient safety. Based on this information, both systems are considered not acceptable or able to meet VA’s requirements per the program office SME. This information was posted publicly to SAM.gov on September 10, 2025. Additionally, it was confirmed on November 3, 2025 that Censis does not authorize any other entity to sell, support, train, or provide maintenance for this software. Therefore, no other source has the required access to the proprietary software to fulfill this requirement. It is determined that there are no other sources that can meet the Government’s requirements.

9. Other Facts: None.

Technical/Requirements Certification

I certify that the supporting data under my cognizant, which are included in this justification, are accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Date

Best Value Determination

I hereby determine that the proposed contract action will represent the best value to the Government consistent with FAR 13.106-3. Further price analysis, to include an analysis of proposed level of effort and mix of labor, will be conducted and subsequent negotiations held as necessary.

Date

Procuring Contracting Officer Certification I certify that this justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Legal Legal Sufficiency Certification: I have reviewed this document and find it legally sufficient, based on the representations set forth in the documents and, if any, attachments. The HCA’s approval is an independently supported decision not wholly reliant on the legal sufficiency determination.

HCA Approval

In my role as Head of the Contracting Activity, based on the foregoing justification, I hereby approve the acquisition of CensiTrac Sterile Processing Services on an other than full and open competition basis pursuant to the authority cited in Section 4 above, subject to availability of funds, and provided that the property and services herein described have otherwise been authorized for acquisition.