IHS-24-SS-HCALM.pdf

IHS-24-SS-HCALM

Sources Sought Notice: Health Care and Accreditation Leadership and Management Support

MARKET RESEARCH PURPOSES ONLY

NOT A REQUEST FOR QUOTE, PROPOSAL OR SOLICITATION

The Indian Health Service (IHS) is conducting market research to support the IHS Office of Clinical and Preventive Services (OCPS), Division of Nursing Services (DNS) to secure a Contractor to provide healthcare executive leadership and management mentorship and development, to support the maintenance of accreditation within the Indian Health Service (IHS) system, and to support the development of organizational structures that sustain and improve healthcare facility accreditation and compliance. This includes domain expertise in healthcare including but not limited to patient safety, credentialing and privileging, Quality Assessment and Performance Improvement (QAPI), and related services.

This is a Sources Sought notice to determine the availability of small businesses (inclusive of VOSB, SDVOSB, HUBZone SB, SDB, WOSB, LB), and Indian Economic Enterprises (IEE) and Indian Small Business Economic Enterprises (ISBEE) capable of supplying the required solution and support services.

This notice is for planning purposes only, and does not constitute an invitation for Bids, Request for Proposal or Request for Quotation or an indication the Government to award a contract, nor does the Government intend to pay for any information submitted as a result of this notice. Your responses to the information requested will assist the Government in determining the appropriate acquisition method, including whether a set-aside is possible.

I. Scope of Work / Capabilities Sought:

At sites within the IHS, the respondent contractors shall be capable of providing on-site expert consultants needed to provide the support necessary, often daily, to achieve, maintain, and exceed accreditation requirements at any site in the IHS healthcare system. Engagements must include leadership and management. This will require mentorship development that ensures sustainable internal capacity to maintain accreditation results. Additionally, this potentially may include, simultaneous engagement at multiple sites within the IHS may occur. Finally, assessments of the capabilities of local leadership.

Critical Capabilities:

1.) Respondents to this notice shall be capable of providing support to between 1 to 5 sites geographically dispersed across the continental United States within the IHS system simultaneously. Support shall involve approximately 2 to 3 full-time staff equivalents engaged up to full-time at each site during engagements, with specialists providing expertise on a more limited basis.

2.) Respondents to this notice shall be capable to provide demonstrated expertise in all of the areas of work outlined in this Statement of Objectives (detailed below) and provide appropriate, experienced personnel with industry-recognized expertise.

Facility Support Capabilities: Respondents to this notice shall be capable of providing customized support to individual IHS facilities as identified in each task order. The potential required services include, but are not limited to:

1. Providing mentoring and training in leadership and management to those IHS-designed leadership and management individuals and teams. This would include, but not be limited to: leadership and governance accountability and oversight processes, enhancing communication, and addressing potential leadership issues.

The facility executive team (C-suite) varies from site to site but typically will include the Chief Executive Officers (CEO), Chief Medical Officers (CMO), Chief Operating Officers (COO), Chief Nursing Officer (CNO), and others as appropriate.

This may include:

General Health Care Facility Operations

Financial Operations - the vendor would be required to have familiarity with federal budgeting, procedures, third-party collections, and best practices.

2. Conducting onsite validation of one or multiple facility’s compliance with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Conditions of Participation, the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care (AAAHC) requirements, or The Joint Commission (TJC) standards, ), as appropriate, with a gap analysis of vulnerabilities. A corrective action plan (CAP) will be created with the facility leadership and shared with pertinent Area and Headquarters leadership. As assistance is provided to more than one facility, any trending common issues/challenges across components will reported to IHS Areas and HQ, facilitating an understanding of systemic issues across the enterprise that will enhance proactive responses.

3. Providing ongoing support for resolution of issues identified in the CAP or other items as identified by the IHS team, working with Facility, Area, and Headquarters staff. These shall include, but are not limited to:

Assessing survey readiness, conduct mock surveys, or prepare for review by other oversight organizations including OSHA, State Medicaid Programs, and others.

4. Reviewing facility infrastructure, including food services.

5. Conducting medical quality review, review of medical staff credentialing, and clinical documentation improvement. This shall include expert consultation to evaluate the quality and performance of the IHS and its ability to meet standards of care, including but not limited to review of medical information, personnel information, and the production of written reports and other briefing materials, both for internal and external audiences.

All reviews require the contractor staff involved to ensure all IHS and patient data is confidential and complies with the Privacy Rule published to implement the requirement of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996; and all other relevant patient privacy laws and regulations. IHS information is not subject to disclosure by contractor staff, except as permitted or required by law or regulation.

6. Providing specialized expert consultation in areas such as, but not limited to, infection prevention, central sterile processing, the environment of care, life safety, and in hospitals, critical access hospitals, and ambulatory care.

7. Assisting in the improvement of adverse events identification, reporting, and resolution processes. This shall include patient advocacy programs, complaint and grievance programs; and conducting root cause analysis (RCA), using the IHS-established RCA process.

8. Reviewing facility communication, accountability, and processes. Support activities shall include but are not limited to: holding communication workshops, identifying accountability challenges, and facilitating process redesign.

9. Reviewing facility-level policy and procedure reviews/revisions and provide recommendations that promote sustainability, internal controls, accountability, and oversight.

10. Reviewing and validate training and staff competencies.

11. Supporting Quality Assessment/Performance Improvement (QA/PI) efforts, including quality team development, establishing measurement framework(s), and supporting QI projects from start to finish including reporting.

12. Addressing specific Departmental or programmatic issues, and assist the facility in addressing them as identified.

13. Conducting transition planning activities after engagements, to ensure Contractor efforts are integrated into federal operations.

Facility Governance and Governing Bodies

1. Reviewing current and prior Governing Body (GB) procedures and minutes to develop a concrete understanding of current GB operations and function to ensure the quality and safety of healthcare delivery.

2. Defining and educate on the core constructs of GB roles and responsibilities.

3. Determing the information that is appropriate and necessary at the local level, and the information necessary for communication to the Area and HQ. This shall include, but is not limited to:

Quality and safety information.

Operations of the Medical staff including credentialing/privileging

The level of detail should be appropriate to the level of review:

details not necessary at the Service Unit, Area, and HQ level, however, anomalies or significant outliers should be discussed).

Regulatory compliance.

Fiduciary obligations, including short-term and long-term budgeting, especially issues of financial stability. Familiarity with federal budgeting, procedures, and third-party collections.

Any personnel issues or other resourcing issues.

Any policy or plan approval as necessary, and required by regulatory agencies. Reporting of these issues should, to the maximum extent possible, utilize and support reporting chains of command.

4. Determining best approaches and methodology for consistency and conciseness of required information.

Ensure reporting uses an impactful and appropriate reporting structure.

Information sharing and direction vertically, responses to and from the board, and ensuring information is fully shared bi-directionally.

Define minimum expectations and performance metrics for each entity

Craft appropriate meaningful agendas.

Ensure presentations are used that lead the board to informed decision-making.

Simplify minutes for ease of information capture and review.

Improve board function to promote proactive board involvement and reduce reactive responses by:

Enhancing information flow and transparency.

Focusing on communication and change management from the governance level.

Enhance reporting and analysis at the governance level to better recognize systems/processes in need of improvement, and train the board to require analysis of direction, rate, variability, and magnitude of change.

System-Wide Programmatic, Analytical, and Policy Support: Respondent contractors shall be capable, on request, to assist IHS in the creation of system-wide National or Area programs, support, and items identified in this contract:

1. On request, capable of assisting IHS in the creation modifications the enhancement of a system-wide infection control and prevention program.

2. On request, capable of providing policy and programmatic support as required. This shall require any necessary analytical or other documents to be produced. This may include financial or cost information and the vendor would be required to have familiarity with federal budgeting, procedures, and third-party collections.

Credentialing: Respondent contractors shall be capable of:

1. Conducting ongoing credentialing specialist training to prepare IHS credentialing specialists for certification.

2. Providing any requisite support for credentialing including examining medical staff information provisioning including credentialing/privileging.

II. Capability Statements:

Responses to this sources sought shall unequivocally demonstrate the respondent's capabilities to provide the services above. At a minimum, responses shall include the following:

1. Cover Page: Business name and bio, EIN number, business address, business website, business size status (i.e., SB, VOSB, SDVOSB, HUBZone SB, SDB, WOSB, LB IEE, or ISBEE), point of contact name, mailing address (if different from business address), phone number and email address. Provide this same information again if responding to provide a service offered by another firm.

2. Relevant Past Performance information inclusive of date of services, description, dollar value, client name, client address, client contact name, client point of contact mailing address (if different from that provided for client), client point of contact phone number, client point of contact email address, and name of company (to include DUNS number and size status) if not the respondent.

3. Descriptive literature, brochures, marketing material, etc. detailing the capabilities of the firm and their relevance to those sought so that the Government may make a determination that the firm is potentially capable if a future solicitation is released.

4. Staffing and Management Capabilities shall detail the respondent's ability to have all necessary staff available to perform the function and support roles requested above and should highlight the firm’s ability to work with Government staff during projects and internal controls available.

III. Response Instructions:

Interested parties shall respond with capability statements; no larger than 20 pages (not inclusive of the cover letter) via e-mail in PDF or Word format before 2:00 PM Eastern Time on April 15th, 2024 to Christopher.McGucken@ihs.gov.

In your response, please use "IHS-24-SS-HCALM” followed by your organizations name as the subject line.

Additionally, if your firm is an Indian Economic Enterprise (IEE) or Indian Small Business Economic Enterprise (ISBEE)- Please include a completed and signed copy of attached form “IHS IEE Form.pdf” with your response. This form will not be counted towards the total page limit.

Disclaimer and Important Notes: This notice does not obligate the Government to award a contract or otherwise pay for the information provided in response. The Government reserves the right to use information provided by respondents for any purpose deemed necessary and legally appropriate. Any organization responding to this notice should ensure that its response is complete and sufficiently detailed to allow the Government to determine the organization's qualifications to perform the work. Respondents are advised that the Government is under no obligation to acknowledge receipt of the information received or provide feedback to respondents with respect to any information submitted. After a review of the responses received, a pre‐solicitation synopsis and solicitation may be published in Federal Business Opportunities.

However, responses to this notice will not be considered adequate responses to a solicitation.

Confidentiality: No proprietary, classified, confidential, or sensitive information should be included in your response. The Government reserves the right to use any non‐proprietary technical information in any resultant solicitation(s).