Headspace SAP CI SSJ.pdf

Source Selection Information – See FAR 2.101 and 3.104

J&A#2 5 - 24 2

SOLE SOURCE JUSTIFICATION

1. Identification of Requiring Activity and Contracting Activity.

This is a Sole Source Justification. The requiring activity is Navy Culture and Force Resilience Office (OPNAV N17); the contracting activity is NAVSUP Fleet Logistics Center (FLC) Norfolk, Contracting Dept., Pentagon Directorate.

2. Description of the Action Being Approved.

This is a sole source action to be awarded as a modification to purchase order N0018924PZ623 for the Headspace Application. Purchase Order N0018924PZ623 was awarded to Headspace, Inc., on 30 September 2024 as a firm-fixed-price (FFP) contract. This contract includes a 12-month base period of performance to from 30 September 2024 through 29 September 2025 followed by two (2) 12-month option periods pursuant to FAR 52.217-9. The total value of this contract is $4,800,000.00, inclusive of options.

3. Description of Required Supplies/Services.

The Navy Culture and Force Resilience Office (OPNAV N17) is seeking to continue piloting "commercial wellness applications" as part of their Quality of Service Initiatives. These initiatives aim to support Sailors in achieving holistic health improvements through stress reduction, mental health support, and physical and nutritional coaching.

This modification will seek to add OCONUS support for up to 25,000 sailors to pilot, assess, and understand scaling opportunities as requests are received from the Fleet, remote/isolated locations. This will support diverse demographics as well as availability for a large population test (up to 25,000 Sailors CONUS) and (up to 25,000 Sailors OCONUS) with significant wellbeing needs (stress reduction and mental health support) at underserved/understaffed Fleet Concentration Areas (Newport News Naval Shipyard, San Diego, Lemoore, New London, and Guam) supporting multiple TYCOMs (CNSP, CNAF, etc.).

This pilot seeks to evaluate the unique benefits of using the “Headspace On-Demand Sub-Clinical Care System” as a commercial application to assist Sailors in improving their resilience and stress management through Sub-clinical interventions from the convenience of a smart-phone and equipping members with immediate access to live mental health coaches available in under two (2) minutes who can both provide in the moment support and/or identify members that need higher levels of care. This provides the secondary benefit of reducing unnecessary demand on under resourced TYCOM, FFSC, and DHA clinical resources.

Headspace provides a confidential on-demand app-based mental health and wellbeing intervention.

As a result of the success seen in isolated duty stations, specifically a 50% reduction in waiting times for clinical care, OPNAV N17 is requesting to expand this app to more isolated duty stations and OCONUS sites. Program popularity, measured by enrollment, is significantly higher compared to existing DoD DON Apps, exceeding 200%. Feedback from members indicates decreased stress, improved sleep, and better emotional regulation. Additionally, an increasing number of commands not part of the pilot are contacting N17 requesting access. There have also been reports of decreased dropout rates at school houses where the app has been launched, compared to similar school houses without the app. Positive feedback during the initial pilot year warrants the provision for the expansion of services CONUS and OCONUS to be administered in an on-demand basis.

Further, OPNAV N17 desires to continue to test the hypothesis that successful commercial applications have greater appeal to Sailors due to large commercial application companies’ deeper understanding of end user needs and ability to address them. Year one pilot results supported this hypothesis as Active Component Sailor and family member engagement with the mobile application and resources.

Therefore, N17 is seeking to pilot, assess, and understand scaling opportunities as requests are received from the Fleet, remote/isolated locations, CONUS and OCONUS.

The contract includes a 12-month base period of performance from 30 September 2024 through 29 September 2025 followed by two (2) 12-month option periods pursuant to FAR 52.217-9.

OPNAV N17 is seeking to modify N0018924PZ623 Option I period 30 September 2025 through 29 September 2026 and Option II period 30 September 2026 through 29 September 2027 to include support for up to 25,000 sailors each.

The estimated total value of this action is $3,377,900.00

4. Statutory Authority Permitting Sole Source.

The statutory authority permitting this sole source action is 41 U.S.C. 1901, Simplified acquisition procedures - a sole source acquisition using simplified acquisition procedures for the acquisition of commercial items, as implemented by FAR 13.501(a).

5. Rationale Justifying Use of Cited Statutory Authority.

Headspace’s unique qualifications that are essential to the Government’s requirement reside with the following:

Headspace is a licensed behavioral healthcare system possessing all the protocols established for suicide intervention/prevention and manage escalated cases as they encounter them. This includes specific protocols to address low-, medium-, high-, and imminent-risk individuals. In cases of Imminent Risk, a Headspace mental health coach would identify and mobilize emergency resources to ensure the safety of the member or others.

Headspace provides Mental Health Coaches that can hand-select meditations, videos, courses and more, related to the challenges discussed during their session with the sailor. This helps members build new skills through applicable exercises and CBT-based behavior change programs between sessions with their coach.

Headspace provides advanced technology to improve member experience and safety. Headspace provides a higher quality and more scalable solution and to better personalize the member experience. Headspace leverages artificial and augmented intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and predictive modeling across their platform.

Headspace has a unique proprietary Care Hub that enables coaches to triage, support, and route service members to existing USN / DoD resources. The Care Hub can provides actionable insights about a unit’s command climate, an installation’s access to services, and resource recommendation trends of existing USN / DoD resources.

Headspace is HITRUST CSF certified (global security and risk management framework) and SOC 2 Type 2 attested (provider's internal controls and systems related to security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy of data). Headspace privacy and security governance is aligned with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 27001 and 27002 security standards, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Special Publications 800 Series, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR (EU) 2016/679, and other relevant state and international breach notification and security regulations. Headspace data is stored on AWS (a FED-RAMP compliant) vendor.

Headspace has the distinct ability as being the only confidential on-demand app-based mental health and wellbeing intervention to adapt commercial success to the military and have proposed a tailored offering to meet the needs of the Navy.

6. Description of Efforts Made to Solicit Offers from as Many Offerors as Practicable, including a

Description of Market Research, if applicable, and a List of Interested Sources, if any.

Market research was conducted to determine the number of sources capable of providing a methodology-driven, scientifically-backed, commercial wellness/mental health support application with the ability to scale to support DoN military and civilians personnel as well as their families/dependents. The result of this research concluded Headspace, Inc., is the only company capable of providing services necessary to meet OPNAV N17’s needs. The requiring activity and contracting activity have conducted market research among GSA Schedule holders as well as alternative commercial applications. OPNAV N17 conducted outreach to 40 commercial wellness applications and asked that firms possessing the required skills, resources, and capabilities necessary to perform the stated requirement as a prime contractor respond with submission of an executive summary detailing its capabilities, including any relevant past performance. Of the firms who responded to the Request for Information, only one (1) vendor was determined by OPNAV N17 to be capable of providing all the required services necessary to meet OPNAV N17’s minimum need and demonstrated an understanding of the requirement.

While there are many behavioral health applications on the market. Headspace was the ONLY solution which was able to meet ALL of the Navy’s requirements. Specifically, OPNAV N17 reviewed 40 “Commercial Wellness Applications” using ten areas of consideration for vendor identification. These included scientific efficacy, third party validation, history of user engagement (as measured by more than 1 million downloads), technical solution stability, data and analytics support, go-to-market/customer support capabilities, company financial viability (valuation greater than $500 million), no ties to United States adversaries, no significant ongoing legal cases with the U.S. or State governments, and ability to support a globally-distributed workforce. Other mental health applications don’t offer the following significantly important capabilities that make Headspace’s offering unique; there are no other similar mental health coach applications that offer 24/7/365 on demand access to live one-on-one mental health coaching. With Headspace, members can access a live mental health coach within two minutes for in-the-moment support or regularly scheduled sessions. The coaches that Headspace offers set themselves apart from other industry offerings because their coaches are Master-Level educated in Psychology with two years of coaching experience and/or certified by the National Board for Health and Wellness Coaching. Further, coaches can select meditations, courses, and other items tailored to their discussion with the member during their session. Headspace has a specialized team that works with members identified as experiencing Suicidal Ideation (SI). In cases where a member is an imminent risk, a Headspace mental health coach would identify and mobilize emergency resources to ensure the safety of the member and others. Finally, Headspace uses advanced technology such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to provide the best user experience on the market. For example, Headspace uses critical information such as onboarding assessments, content utilization, chat transcripts, member satisfaction data, session length, patient health questionnaires, to power their services. There is simply is no other similar mental health application on the market that offers these suite of capabilities which are crucial to ensure the mental well-being of individuals including Navy sailors. As a result, Headspace’s mental health application is the only on-demand application identified as meeting all the requirements to support Navy sailors with immediate and robust mental health services.

Market research has determined Headspace, Inc., is the only capable source of meeting OPNAV N17’s requirement.

No other source has been identified who possesses the requisite resources to fulfill OPNAV N17’s need.

7. Determination of Fair and Reasonable Cost.

The Contracting Officer has determined that the anticipated cost to the Government of the supplies/services covered by this Justification will be fair and reasonable.

8. Actions to Remove Barriers to Future Competition.

Any subsequent follow-on requirements will be handled on a case-by-case basis. If another potential source emerges, NAVSUP FLC Norfolk, Pentagon Directorate will assess whether competition for further requirements is feasible. The requiring activity will continue to perform market research to try to identify additional sources for future requirements.

9. Contracting Point of Contact.

The point of contact at NAVSUP Fleet Logistics Center, Norfolk, Pentagon Directorate is Dennis A. Aquino, dennis.a.aquino2.civ@us.navy.mil