JA HealthLevel Radiology Analytics_SEWP_Redacted.pdf

Foundations by HealthLevel Software, VA-24-00054024 Maintenance and Implementation

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 a firm fixed price delivery order under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) V Government wide Acquisition Contract (GWAC), brand name Foundations by HealthLevel licenses, implementation, and software maintenance.

3. Description of the Supplies or Services: The VA Northeast Ohio Healthcare System (VANEOHS) has a new requirement for brand name Foundations by HealthLevel as a radiology business operations platform with analytics-driven protocoling workflows for an estimated initial case volume of 150,000. This includes interfaces with Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA) or Oracle Health/Cerner (or future EHR), IPicture Archiving and Communication System (PACS), Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM), PowerScribe, and other new data sources as needed.

The Foundations platform allows for end user focus and personalization of complex healthcare data in one place. This includes real-time and historical clinical, financial, and operational insight into one easy to manage dashboard. VANEOHS currently has data spread across various systems with delays in pulling data, limited reporting from informatics, printing records and protocoling delaying turnaround times, not providing a feedback loop for quality of care, and reporting of errors to safety committees. The HealthLevel Foundations platform allows for a unique combination of data extracts by running proprietary FILEMAN scrips in Vista, HL7 message collection, and DICOM extracts. Foundations has already been installed at multiple Veterans Integrated Service Networks (VISN) as well as the National Teleradiology Program (NTP). While other VISNs and NTP have instances of Foundations by HealthLevel specific to their own data, the ability to aggregate specific data between and in continuity of those instances allows for a comparison of data between them for initiatives such as radiation dose tracking and productivity measures. The proposed package includes radiology ordering protocoling, predictive modeling for room usage, real time monitoring for patient workflows, capacity management and analytics for scheduling, and personalized dashboards and charts for end users to make data driven decisions for veteran care.

Radiology exam protocoling is a vital function of a radiology department. Exam protocoling provides value to the referring physician by ensuring that the most appropriate exam is performed for the clinical question or scenario while minimizing the also providing data extractions, analytics, customizable dashboards, patient monitoring, and appointment management. Foundations Radiology Order Protocoling is unique in the way it allows radiologists to protocol and is customized to work specifically in a VHA context which doesn’t present all relevant clinical data in a single protocoling module natively within VISTA and CPRS. The system pulls all relevant clinical data a radiologist would need directly from VISTA and CPRS into a single screen allowing them to select the appropriate protocol with a few clicks saving time with each exam reviewed. In addition to the data extracts used for protocoling module, they are also used for patient flow management allowing the service to electronically manage patients that are checked in. Further The Data extracts are used for appointment management allowing the Radiology schedulers to have all relevant data to schedule veteran appointments more effectively. Finally, the data extracts are used for real time performance monitoring of staff to be used for customizable worklists and dashboards. HealthLevel staff are only ones with knowledge of HealthLevel systems to properly maintain and support Foundations by HealthLevel and have VHA network access to provide support in a timely manner.

HealthLevel has established interfaces with VISTA and are able to integrate with the infrastcture and provide remote support through their approved network access. If Foundations by HealthLevel is not implemented, it will result in lack of overall productivity of Radiologists with the current protocoling process and staff will also not be as efficient with scanning patients since current process requires printing of records. If other solutions are available there is a significant financial, staff, and time cost with getting approvals for the necessary interfaces and network access to implement and provide maintenance and support.

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 Foundations by HealthLevel. 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 SAM.gov Contract Opportunities 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: The Government’s technical experts conducted web-based market research between June 2023 to October 2023 to determine if there are viable sources other than HealthLevel who could provide the software licenses, implementation services, and maintenance necessary for this requirement. The Government’s technical experts analyzed other similar software including looking at business intelligent systems from Philips and Nuance. The SMEs demonstrated the products at the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) conference in December of 2022 and again at the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine (SIIM) Annual Meeting in June of 2023. Subsequent live demonstrations were conducted for the Chief of Radiology and supervisors of Foundations by HealthLevel. Further, independent demonstrations were provided by VISN 21 in August 2023. The National PACS Administrator group was also emailed as part of market research for electronic protocoling and radiology analytics options where the respondents shared their ongoing use of Foundations by HealthLevel. Based on reviews of these products, the Government’s technical experts determined that none of these products can meet the Government’s interoperability and compatibility requirements with VISTA, CPRS, and Radiology Information Systems. Further, market research determined that the brand name Foundations by HealthLevel software was used across the VHA to provide the capabilities outlined above. Additionally, none of these other products can offer the upstream forwarding of localized data into the existing Foundations by HealthLevel platform. In addition to the data extracts, the Protocoling module was demonstrated showing all relevant clinical data in one screen allowing for a customizable protocoling menu for radiologists to more efficiently protocol exams. Foundations by HealthLevel is only vendor capable of aggregating Based on all of these market research efforts, the Government’s technical experts have determined that onlyFoundations by HealthLevel’s software can meet all of VA’s needs.

Additional market research was performed in March 2024 utilizing the NASA SEWP V GWAC Provider Lookup tool, which resulted in the identification of multiple resellers of the required brand name Foundations by HealthLevel software. Furthermore, the NASA SEWP V GWAC has a dynamic catalog where line items can be added based on customer requests provided that the required item or service is within the scope of the NASA SEWP V contract suite and therefore additional competition may be achieved. As a result, there is a reasonable expectation for limited competition on the NASA SEWP V GWAC for the brand name Foundations by HealthLevel software.

9. Other Facts: None

Approval In my role as procuring activity Advocate for Competition, based on the foregoing justification, I hereby approve the acquisition of brand name Foundations by HealthLevel software licenses, implementation, and software maintenance 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.