JA- DSS LiveData Periop brand - VA-25-00060991- Redacted.pdf

DSS LiveData PeriOp Brand Name CONTROL NUMBER VA-25-00060991

JUSTIFICATION FOR AN EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY

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

2. Description of Action: The proposed action is for firm-fixed-price order to be issued under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) V Government Wide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) for brand name Document Storage System (DSS) LiveData PeriOp Manager with Planner solution which includes software, hardware, associated installation, implementation, configuration, maintenance and training.

3. Description of the Supplies or Services: Currently, VA VISN 8, requires a comprehensive surgical workflow planning system to support its healthcare operations. Presently, eleven of the twelve VAMCs are utilizing the Document Storage Systems LiveData PeriOp Surgical Workflow Planning System, which is integrated with Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA). The system should provide real-time, graphical views of patient status, manages perioperative complexity, enhances team communication, improves patient safety, and streamlines documentation by updating VistA directly.

and the installation at the 12th VAMC. necessary software licenses for the surgical workflow planning system, along with ongoing support and maintenance services to ensure system reliability, security, and compliance with VA policies. Access controls must be strictly enforced to protect protected health information (PHI), restricting external web-based access and limiting internal access to authorized personnel only. This ensures that PHI remains secure while facilitating efficient clinical workflows across all VAMCs in VISN 8.

The Contractor shall provide a surgical workflow planning system that meets the following requirements: Collect procedure specific data; Collect data from the Electronic Health Record (EHR), Anesthesia systems, and physiological monitoring devices;

Collect data required by VA's National Surgery Office; Display overall information on the perioperative process and progress of the patient through the process in the Operating Room (OR) on multiple screens for multiple audiences in order to maintain privacy requirements when/where necessary; Have the capability to schedule patients for surgery; Have the ability for HL7 bi-directional integration with VistA; Have a schedule

Have an appointment book view; Allocate and track surgery services scheduling block by day of the week and by operating room; Edit master block schedule to maximize utilization of operating rooms; Ability to request, schedule, and cancel a surgical case by entering in specific patient, procedure, staff and operating room data; Create surgical

-operative work up and track its completion; Assign user roles; Anonymize patient information and align with HIPAA regulations; Include a report generator;

Provide reporting for site-level analysis including customizable reporting by facility.

Currently eleven Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Centers (VAMC) in the Veterans Integrated Service Network (VISN) 8 Health Care Systems are using Document Storage Systems LiveData PeriOp Surgical Workflow Planning System. The LiveData PeriOp Surgical Workflow Planning Solution is a Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA)-integrated, graphical user interface designed to provide a constant integrated view of patient status in real-time, manage perioperative complexity, improve team communication, enhance patient safety, and improve operational efficiency by streamlining documentation and updating VistA. VA now requires the same DSS LiveData PeriOp surgical workflow planning system solution for another VAMC site in VISN 8 and requires continued maintenance for the eleven sites with a deployed system and new implementation of Document Storage Systems LiveData PeriOp Surgical Workflow Planning System for the remaining one VAMC in VISN 8. The twelfth site being added is the Jacksonville VAMC. The solution will be hosted in VA on VISN 8 Biomedical virtual Windows 11 servers which feed data to the various boards using Internet Information Services (IIS). VA requires Health Level Seven (HL7) bi-directional integration with VistA where data is received from and sent to VistA using HL7 messaging. The implementations shall restrict access to protected health information (PHI) only to appropriate individuals. This involves restricting external access via web browsers, restricting internal access to the hosting server and its databases. The DSS Periop LiveData solution is essential for all facilities within the Veterans Integrated Service Network (VISN) as it significantly enhances patient care, operational efficiency, and resource management in perioperative settings. By providing real-time data and analytics, this solution enables healthcare providers to make informed decisions, promptly address surgical caseloads, optimize staffing, and improve patient flow. DSS Periop LiveData is the only solution integrated with VistA, VA is currently transitioning from VistA to a modernized EHR (EHRM). VISN 8 is tentatively scheduled to transition to EHRM around 2030 and therefore DSS PeriOp LiveData solution will be needed until then.

Installation, configuration, onsite implementation, and user training are required at the Jacksonville VAMC. The Contractor shall provide 24/7/365 maintenance and technical support for the solution, which includes bug fixes, any upgrade releases, and telephone support at all twelve sites. The Contractor shall complete all delivery, installation, implementation, and configuration at the Jacksonville VAMC no later than six months after award. The period of performance shall be 12 months from date of award followed by three 12-month options, if exercised.

4. Statutory Authority: Pursuant to Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 16.505(a)(4), the following brand name requirement is being justified and approved as an exception to fair opportunity under the statutory authority of Section 41 U.S.C. 4106(c)(2) as providing the supplies or services required at the level of quality required because the supplies or services ordered ar

5. Rationale Supporting Use of Authority Cited Above: Based upon market research, as described in Section 8 of this justification, it was determined that limited competition is viable among resellers of the DSS PeriOp Manager with Planner solution and associated installation, implementation, configuration, maintenance, and training. Only

Specifically, the DSS PeriOp Manager with Planner solution is the only OR Manager software that can integrate and work in the existing VistA/CPRS system. VistA/CPRS is outpatient electronic health record for VA patients. Additionally, the DSS PeriOp Manager software was developed by VistA programmers to integrate an automated solution with the VA VistA environment through bidirectional communications using HL7 code and Application Programming Interfaces.

If another brand name OR software was used, VA would have to implement it into the current VA infrastructure which would require a complete redesign and redevelopment of the existing infrastructure and interfaces. Specifically, the process would involve extensive testing, validation, and reconfiguration, leading to significant duplicated costs.

These efforts and expenses would not be recuperated through competitive processes.

This estimate is based on similar software development and installation efforts. In addition, the DSS PerioOp Manager with Planner solution is the only OR software that

Specifically, only the DSS PerioOp Manager with Planner solution preoperative (PreOp) Board maps VistA/CPRS data elements to PreOp milestones and documents milestone completion criteria. The OR Dashboard verifies the mapping of VistA/CPRS data elements to OR-Dashboard visuals. The OR-Schedule Board allows the user to view the current days surgical caseload as an aggregated view in real-time. The display shows the current status of all surgical cases and operating rooms, thus enabling VISN 8 perioperative managers the ability to focus on the progress of cases while proactively canceling or rescheduling cases to allow for best operating room utilization. With bidirectional flow of data from and to Vista, this case canceling/rescheduling functionality is automatically reflected in VistA, thereby streamlining documentation practices and preventing perioperative bottlenecks. The use of another brand name other than DSS PeriOp Manager with Planner software system with a platform that is incompatible with VistA/CPRS platform would also result in doubling VHA medical personnel workload to input of necessary data entries as every piece of data would require to be manually entered first into the DSS PeriOp data system and then separately entered into the VistA/CPRS system.

This lack of integration prevents real-time bidirectional sharing of information between systems, which increases the risk of data entry errors, omissions, and contraindications, and creates inefficiencies in use of available operating room resources. This also increases risk to the patients due to poorly coordinated patient data and the inability to optimize in real time the use of that data.

Finally, DSS PeriOp Manager with Planner software is a proprietary software product.

Therefore, only DSS or its authorized resellers can provide maintenance on its software product. The proprietary code is required to ensure all DSS PeriOp software updates and patches are properly pushed through the fielded software and to ensure the software is properly configured. Access to this code is also required to ensure all services provided on the DSS PeriOp Manager with Planner software is properly configured. Access to DSS proprietary data and source code is required to provide the required software maintenance on DSS PeriOp Manager with Planner software. Only DSS and its authorized resellers can provide the associated knowledge base specific installation/implementation/configuration and training services for the DSS PeriOp Manager with Planner software as both require access to required proprietary code and technical data. If DSS PeriOp Manager is not procured, VISN 8 ORs will lack in maximum VistA/CPRS integration with its perioperative activities. VISN 8 VAMCs would be required to continue to use manual processes without the benefit of improved OR utilization such as increased patient safety and more efficient communications.

-DataBridge is the only proprietary tool in the market that can provide specific software licenses and upgrades for the connectivity and information exchange between the VA government CPRS as well as VISTA.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted, details of which are in Section 8 of this justification. This effort did not yield any additional sources that can meet the Government s requirements. However, the undersigned VA technical representative determined that limited competition is available among authorized resellers for brand name DSS LiveData Periop Manager solution described in Section 3.

In accordance with FAR 16.505(a)(4)(iii)(A)(1), this justification will be provided with the solicitation to all appropriate NASA SEWP V GWAC holders. Furthermore, in accordance with FAR 5.301, 16.505(b)(2)(ii)(D), and 16.505(a)(4)(iii), the award notice for this action will be synopsized on the Contract Opportunities website and this justification will be made publicly available within 14 days of award.

7. Actions to Increase Competition: The Government will continue to conduct market research to ascertain if there are changes in the marketplace that would enable future actions to be competed.

8. Market Research:

through April 2025 to identify other vendors or products similar to the required surgical workflow solutions. Based on website reviews, PICIS and Surgimate were identified as solutions that primarily focus on perioperative management and clinical workflows.

However, these systems do not offer the comprehensive, enterprise-wide document storage capabilities mandated by VA standards. Additionally, they do not provide integration capabilities with the existing VistA/CPRS systems. Specifically, they do not support the real-time, bi-directional data exchange required as outlined in Section 3 of this Justification.

. No other OR Manager software is capable of integrating with the current VistA infrastructure and has the bidirectional dataflow functionality.

have determined that only DSS LiveData PeriOp brand name surgical workflow solution can meet . From February 6, 2025 to March 6, 2025, web searches and email correspondence were utilized. A Request for Information (RFI) was also used to obtain market research on March 27, 2025 and results from only one vendor received on April 4, 2025. Additionally, a Request for Information was posted on NASA SEWP on April 2, 2025 with a closing date of April 14, 2025. Upon closing, one response was received from Minburn Technology Group. Utilizing the NASA SEWP provider lookup tool the search matches of which four are approved resellers, as follows: Blue Tech Inc; Minburn Technology Group; ThunderCat Technology, LLC; Flywheel Data, LLC; Netsync Network Solutions, Inc.

9. Other Facts: None

10.Technical/Requirements Certification I certify that the supporting data under my cognizance, which are included in this justification, are accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Melissa Hartley Date

11.Fair and Reasonable Cost Determination I hereby determine that the anticipated price to the Government for this contract action will be fair and reasonable based on anticipated competition and discounts among NASA SEWP V GWAC holders. Additionally, NASA SEWP determines that all catalog prices on its GWACs are fair and reasonable. Additional price analysis may be performed in accordance with FAR 15.404-1(b).

Debra Clayton Date

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

Debra Clayton Date

Office of General Counsel (OGC) Review I have reviewed this document and find it legally sufficient, based on the representations set forth in the documents and, if any, attachments. The Contracting Officer approval is an independently supported decision not wholly reliant on the legal sufficiency determination.

Magda Tatiana Reyes Date Office of General Counsel

Advocate for Competition Approval

In my role as procuring activity Advocate for Competition, based on the foregoing justification, I hereby approve the acquisition of brand name DSS LiveData PeriOp Manager with Planner solution which includes software, hardware, associated installation, implementation, configuration, maintenance and training on an other than fair opportunity 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.

Jason Bullen Date Advocate for Competition Technology Acquisition Center Office of Procurement, Acquisition, and Logistics Department of Veterans Affairs