JA GRIT - Redacted.pdf

Innovative Mobile Application to Improve the Military to Civilian Transition and Post

Transition/Veteran Status

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, NJ 07724

2. Description of Action: This proposed action is for a firm-fixed price contract to license IBM’s Health & Wellness 360 platform (formally the Trust Platform) that runs the existing Getting Results in Transition (GRIT) mobile application including support services along with limited software application development to enhance the GRIT mobile application in order to deliver a Software as a Service (SaaS) Solution.

3. Description of Supplies or Services: VA is on a mission to enhance the transition experience from military to civilian life for service members, Veterans, members of the National Guard, Reserves, and their loved ones. In 2016, the Veteran’s Health Administration (VHA) Office of Mental Health and Suicide Prevention (OMHSP) launched a collaborative partnership with IBM through a Memorandum of Understanding to develop the GRIT proof of concept. The pilot’s goal was to demonstrate how the real-time and consistent collection of personalized data could help Veterans understand and strengthen their emotional well-being and resiliency during the transition from active duty to civilian life. In 2018, IBM and VA designed, developed, tested, and documented the GRIT mobile application to become a pilot ready prototype.

The GRIT mobile application resides on IBM’s proprietary Health & Wellness 360 platform.

The Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA), Office of Transition and Economic Development, has a requirement for an expanded operational field test of the GRIT mobile application. The GRIT mobile application will assist current and former members of the National Guard, Reserves and all other Veterans’ employment search capabilities during their transition from military to civilian life, while ensuring an increased social connection throughout the job search process. The GRIT mobile application includes features such as building social connections/networks, a built-in chat-bot to engage application user by providing real-time resources (i.e. financial advice, employment support and information on benefits), and an Identity Management capability (allows military service to be verified). The IBM Health & Wellness 360 platform is comprised of approximately seven common social determinants of health, including: employment, education, finance, housing, physical health, community, and behavioral health. This platform is a cloud based, Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) approved solution capable of delivering all services through native iOS and Android mobile apps. Employment support features in the platform are enabled by IBM Watson Employment Manager (WEM). VBA requires licensing to IBM’s Health & Wellness 360 platform to expand the field test to GRIT mobile application users. VBA also requires limited development of the GRIT mobile application to include modifying

Military to Civilian Transition and Post Transition/Veteran Status the existing functionality. VBA also requires customer service support for the mobile application to include help desk support and break/fix services. The Period of Performance for this effort consists of a 12-month base period and a 12-month option period. The estimated price, inclusive of the 12-month option, is $6,798,040.23.

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) 6.302-1 entitled, “Only One Responsible Source and No Other Supplies or Services Will Satisfy Agency Requirements.”

5. Rationale Supporting Use of Authority Cited Above: The proposed source for this action is IBM, 1 New Orchard Road, Armonk, New York 10504-1722. Based on the market research, as described in Section 8 of this justification, it was determined that, due to the proprietary closed-source IBM Health & Wellness 360 platform on which the GRIT mobile application resides, and the proprietary nature of the IBM Watson Employment Manager, the only source for hosting the GRIT mobile application is IBM.

Although IBM did deliver the software code to the Open Source Electronic Health Record Alliance repository for the GRIT Android mobile application employment prototype under contract 36C10B18C2745 giving VA unlimited rights to the GRIT mobile application, the platform and Infrastructure on which the GRIT mobile application resides remains proprietary. As noted earlier Health & Wellness 360 platform consists of IBM WEM which is a proprietary cognitive Artificial Intelligence (AI) engine that powers the GRIT mobile application and assists Service members and Veterans to translate military unique skillsets (i.e. Military Occupational Specialties (MOS), Air Force Specialty Code (AFSC)) into civilian positions and against an active feed of job listings.

The closed-source IBM Health & Wellness 360 platform inclusive of Watson and proprietary WEM is uniquely capable of hosting the GRIT mobile application and is not available to other solution providers. Furthermore, VA does not have access to any of the IBM proprietary data for the platform required to operate the GRIT mobile application and no platform exists today that can host the GRIT mobile application and provide the capability to build social connections/networks to assist service members and all other Veterans’ during their transition from military to civilian life throughout the job search process.

Furthermore, enhancements in the form of limited software application development to the GRIT mobile application will be required to add additional functionality and features to the application to ensure application modules operate seamlessly and the application remains operational. The GRIT mobile application was developed based on the IBM Health & Wellness 360 platform and is therefore tightly integrated with the platform.

Any changes or enhancements necessitate coordination with the IBM Health & Wellness 360 platform to ensure the application continues to function and operate as required. As usage data and feedback are captured, changes may be required to the GRIT mobile application also necessitating changes to the underlying platform to ensure synchronization of the GRIT mobile application. Developing a new technology platform and mobile application that complies with requirements would require a duplication of effort as well as substantial additional cost. Specifically, to orient a source on the existing GRIT application or to develop a similar prototype to include its complex interdependencies with the VA network and backend infrastructure would take approximately 12 months of ramp-up time. The additional cost (approximately $1M based on GRIT initial development costs), in addition to the cost of re-developing the underlying technology to run the application, is not anticipated to be recovered through full and open competition. The Government’s requirement is to license an established hosting capability to run the existing GRIT mobile application. The Government’s requirement is not to develop a hosting environment to run the existing GRIT application.

No other source has access to the proprietary IBM Health & Wellness 360 platform including WEM technology. IBM owns the rights to the proprietary IBM WEM and is the only company that can provide WEM. IBM’s proprietary technologies, specifically WEM, that support the GRIT application are not available for sale. If the Government cannot license the existing technology platform that currently supports the GRIT mobile application, there will be significant delays and additional costs to reengineer what has already been developed. This will ultimately delay getting the GRIT mobile application into production for transition service members at a critical time in the transition to civilian life.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted, details of which are in the market research section of this document. This effort did not yield any additional sources that can currently meet the Government’s requirements. The VA will continue to evaluate the competition landscape to validate if other sources can provide this capability. Additionally, the proposed action will be synopsized on the Contracting Opportunities page at beta.sam.gov in accordance with FAR 5.201. Any proposals that are received will be evaluated.

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: Government technical experts conducted market research via a Request for Information (RFI) dated January 12, 2021 seeking alternative solutions. The Government received 14 responses (including a response from IBM) on January 25, 2021. Based on the RFI responses, the technical experts determined that no source could provide a turn-key hosting platform capable of operating the existing GRIT mobile application without further review/analysis and development. Four respondents specifically stated that additional analyses would need to occur with no reference to planned timelines for this analysis. Two of the vendors stated they could only provide a partial solution (i.e. military verification, application development). Seven respondents did not demonstrate a capability to a migrate the application to another platform/hosting environment. The Government followed up with all respondents on April 9, 2021 and notified them that due to the proprietary closed-source IBM Health & Wellness 360 platform on which the GRIT mobile application resides, and the proprietary nature of the IBM Watson

Employment, the Government intends to pursue a sole source contract with IBM to expand the operational field test for the GRIT mobile application. The Government received responses from two of the respondents both dated April 9, 2021 confirming receipt of the Government’s assessment. To date, no other responses have been received.

While other vendors may be capable of developing a solution and application for Veterans during military-to-civilian transitions, no vendor is able to host, operate and develop enhancements to the current GRIT application without access to IBM’s proprietary data and source code necessary to continue the hosting, operation and limited development of the GRIT application. The Government contacted IBM on April 8, 20121 to inquire if the IBM Health & Wellness 360 platform is available for sale so that VA may compete the requirements for hosting the GRIT mobile application. On April 9, 2021 IBM responded that the Health & Wellness 360 platform is not for sale. The GRIT mobile application runs on the IBM Health & Wellness 360 proprietary platform; therefore, at this time only IBM can support this requirement during the operation of the application.

9. Other Facts: None