Limited Sources Justification - Website Managment Support - FBO.pdf

Limited Sources Justification

1. Identification of the Agency and Contracting Activity.

a. Federal Agency and Contracting Activity.

National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Cancer Institute (NCI) Office of Acquisitions (OA) Prevention, Control and Population Sciences Branch (PCPSB)

b. Sponsoring Organization.

National Cancer Institute (NCI) Office of Communications and Public Liaison (OCPL) Office of Dissemination and Digital Communications (ODDC)

c. Program Manager Information.

(Customer Point of Contact Redacted)

2. Nature and/or Description of the Action Being Approved.

a. Acquisition purpose and objectives.

A one-month bridge award is planned, to be procured via a call/order under an NIH-wide Blanket Purchasing Agreement (BPA). Due to unforeseen circumstances, the National Cancer Institute (NCI), Office of Communications & Public Liaison (OCPL), Office of Dissemination and Digital Communications (ODDC) has an urgent and compelling need to avoid a break in service for critical support.

This acquisition is necessary for NCI to meet a core mission objective of ensuring that members of the public who have been diagnosed with cancer, as well as their family and caregivers, are able to obtain cancer-related information. This information is primarily disseminated through the NCI’s public website. NCI’s website receives more than 4 million visits from the American public every month.

Additionally, healthcare professionals who work with cancer patients and their families rely upon information from the NCI to inform diagnosis and treatment decisions, again relying upon NCI’s public website, in addition to an integrated content creation and management framework, including the Physicians Database Query (PDQ) system and other enterprise data/content repositories. These digital communication channels ensure that updates to information about life-saving treatments and clinical trials are available to healthcare professionals, patients and caregivers.

As the NCI is the leading cancer research organization in the United States, it is the NCI’s responsibility to ensure that the United States public and healthcare professionals do not lose effective access to current cancer-related information that the NCI has invested significant appropriated funding in compiling. Information through digital channels must be updated daily to provide up to date information on evidence-based cancer treatment practices.

Additionally, these digital services are integral to ensuring effective operation of the NCI grants portfolio, keeping a large community of organizations updated on funding opportunities and related policy information. Therefore, a break in core services to support digital communications development, optimization, and maintenance is unacceptable and would result in the NCI failing to meet its mission.

b. Project background.

Previous awards for services to support digital communications development, optimization, and maintenance for the NCI OCPL ODDC include:

- GS-35F-4550G/HHSN261200800005I; Vendor - Lockheed Martin Management

Systems Designers; Period of Performance: 04/15/2008-04/14/2010.

- GS-35F-0442V/HHSP23320100274G; Vendor - Sapient Government Services; Period of Performance: 04/15/2010 - 09/14/2014.

- GS35F0442V/HHSP233201400036B; Vendor - Sapient Government Services; Period of Performance: 09/15/2014 – 01/07/2020.

3. Description of the supplies or services required to meet the agency’s needs (including the estimated value).

a. Project title. NCI/OCPL Digital Communications Services

b. Project description.

The contractor shall provide the skills, tools, resources, and program/project management necessary to manage the dissemination of cancer-related information through planning, designing, developing, testing, implementing, operating, optimizing, maintaining, and supporting: digital strategy; web and social media; other communications platforms (content management systems, PDQ authoring/production and support systems, other new emerging platforms, etc.); software engineering and architecture; and, metrics reporting and analysis.

• Requirement type.

IT Services

• Type of action.

Sole Source Bridge Award (BPA Call) to Get to Competitive Re-Procurement

• Proposed contract/order type.

Labor-Hour

• Acquisition identification number.

HHSN276201500007B/75N91020F00038

c. Total estimated dollar value and performance/delivery period.

The anticipated period of performance for this award is one month:

January 8, 2020 – February 7, 2020. The Government’s estimate for the period is (Estimate Redacted).

4. Identification of the statutory authority permitting limitation of sources.

FAR 8.405-6(a)(1)(i)(A): An urgent and compelling need exists, and following the procedures would result in unacceptable delays.

5. Demonstration that the nature of the acquisition requires use of the authority cited:

This one-month task order is being issued as an urgent bridge to help OCPL avoid a gap in critical digital communications support. This urgent and compelling need is not due to a lack in procurement planning. The program area performed all necessary planning activities in a timely manner to utilize an assisted acquisition contracting mechanisms through the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Program Support Center (PSC) contracting office. However, due to unanticipated challenges and circumstances beyond the control of either office, the HHS PSC contracting office has been unable to complete the acquisition as planned. Therefore, the NCI OCPL is pursing a short bridge award, to allow the HHS PSC additional time to work through unexpected challenges. This bridge award will be issued by the NCI Office of Acquisitions, a different contracting office, and will be issued under a multiple award Blanket Purchasing Agreement that was established for use by all contracting offices throughout the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Using a viable contracting office and contracting vehicle to procure these services from the incumbent contractor for the short timeframe of one month is justifiable as it is what is considered the minimal duration of time and minimal scope of services necessary to maintain continuity of operations while the HHS PSC proceeds through its remaining processes to reach the (delayed) award date established in an assisted acquisitions services agreement. There is not adequate time to complete a competitive procurement and maintain continuity of operations, given the unforeseen circumstances that have led to a phased-out termination of the assisted acquisition services agreement with HHS PSC.

This contractor has been providing digital communications services for the past five years and has the expertise and knowledge required to perform mission critical activities, such as managing the Cancer.gov website and other ongoing projects including communicating key grant deadlines, breaking research news, and changes in NCI policies. In particular, the NCI is in the middle of implementing mandatory security-related upgrades to its website and associated systems that cannot be delayed. The cancer.gov website maintained and operated by the NCI is often the first place that people turn to when receiving a cancer diagnosis, and a primary source of information for healthcare professionals treating cancer patients. NCI digital communication services are essential to ensuring that there is effective dissemination and utilization of all of the vast cancer-related information that the NCI spends significant funding and effort to develop.

The NCI does not have adequate staffing resources to complete these services without contractor support at this time.

Without contractor support, NCI’s PDQ database that powers much of the information on Cancer.gov and is also distributed to more than 12 content dissemination partners would not be operational. Without contractor support to manage the website, NCI’s Cancer Information Service that responds to inquiries of a highly time-sensitive and critical nature from cancer patients and caregivers via website chat, email, and phone would be unable to effectively meet the needs of inquirers. Without contract support, current projects that are underway to migrate mission critical applications on the NCI public website from legacy systems to more current systems would be seriously disrupted, and deadlines related to retiring these systems would be missed. This would have a significant impact on ensuring appropriate stewardship of NCI systems.

The NCI OCPL has already begun working with the NCI Office of Acquisitions on a competitive procurement to acquire these services, and vendors interested in competing for this award will have an opportunity to do so within approximately the next 2 months, when a competitive RFQ is planned to be released.

6. Name and address of the proposed contractor(s).

Sapient Government Services, Inc.

1515 N Courthouse Rd FL 4 Arlington, VA 22201

7. Determination by the Contracting Officer that the order represents the best value consistent with 8.404(d).

This requirement has a long history of reasonable price information for the required services.

Pricing information received from the quote will be compared to the rates used in the previous awards with the contractor for same/similar services, as well as to the Independent Government Estimate. GSA FSS schedule rates for same/similar services may be consulted as well, as necessary.

8. Description of the market research conducted (see FAR Part 10) and the results, or a statement of the reasons market research was not conducted.

Market research was not appropriate for this situation. The need is urgent and compelling, and there are no other contractor organizations who are uniquely situated to support continuity of operations. The ongoing system security updates and other urgent website and digital communications services that are needed require contractor staff who have access and working knowledge of NCI systems. Getting through the NIH credentialing process alone is anticipated to take at least one month, in and of itself. Given the abrupt and unexpected inability to use an established single-award contract vehicle as anticipated, it is not feasible to transition a new organization within the timeframe needed.

The NCI OA conducted a review to obtain the services needed in this bridge award. The incumbent contractor Sapient Government Services, Inc. has a General Services Administration (GSA) Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) No. GS-35-F- 0442/HHSN276201500007B at the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health.

The NCI OA confirmed that the services needed to operate the OCPL Digital Communications program can be obtained through this contract.

However, as mentioned, the procurement process has already begun for a competitive award to provide these services in the future. The re-procurement will provide for adequate transition time to allow onboarding, credentialing, provisioning, and training of a new vendor. There are not barriers to competition for these services, provided that adequate transition time is considered, and the re-procurement will address this appropriately. Further market research will be conducted as the competitive re-procurement acquisition planning phase continues.

9. Any other facts supporting the use of other than full and open competition.

None.

10. Statement of the actions, if any, the agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers to competition before any subsequent acquisition for the required supplies or services.

The NCI OCPL does not believe that any barriers to competition will remain, once this one-month bridge contract is awarded, and the HHS PSC awards the pending 6-month award for these services. The NCI OCPL is moving forward with a competitive procurement to meet its needs following the expiration of these contracts.

12. Program office certification.

This is to certify that the portions of this justification that have been developed by the undersigned program office personnel, including supporting information and/or data verifying the Government’s minimum needs, schedule requirements and other rationale proceeding with limited sources, are accurate and complete.

(Signatures Redacted)

13. Contracting Officer Certification.

This is to certify that the justification for the proposed acquisition has been reviewed and that to the best of my knowledge and belief the information and/or data provided to support the limited sources rationale and recommendation for approval is accurate and complete.

(Signatures Redacted)