JA_HINGE Interface_Redacted.pdf

CONTROL NUMBER VA-25-00090759

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, New Jersey 07724

2. Description of Action: The proposed action is for a sole source, firm-fixed price contract with Hunter Strategy, LLC for Information Technology technical support and development work for interfaces with VA�s Electronic Health Record (EHR) deployment.

3. Description of Supplies or Services: The Veterans Health Administration (VHA), National Radiology Oncology Program (NROP) has a requirement to build, test, develop and deploy the Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) based interfaces to automatically abstract data elements from VA�s instance of the Oracle EHR to the Health Information Gateway and Exchange (HINGE) application for disease site specific templates minimizing data entry load for the clinic end users. HINGE is a software that facilitates live treatment information, and when HINGE is in place, that information is immediately integrated into the correct VA record. HINGE also performs analytics at the back end focused on reporting quality metrics. For this requirement, the contractor shall provide full-stack development, including an interface developer, a project manager with risk management expertise, and a cloud subject matter expert to collaborate in building the HINGE application software including data interfaces with the Oracle EHR and HINGE application. This work shall include software development, cloud-based deployment and project management including code and software architecture reviews and coordination with the Oracle EHR developers to validate these interfaces, and, finally, provide ongoing support and maintenance of these interfaces once deployments are complete. This work directly supports the EHR deployment of radiation oncology program at the Veterans Affairs Medical Centers (VAMC) in Detroit, MI and Ann Arbor, MI.

The period of performance for this proposed contract is 12 months from date of award.

The total estimated value of the proposed action is

4. Statutory Authority: This acquisition is conducted under the authority of the Multiple- Award Schedule Program. The statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition is 41 U.S.C. 3304(a)(2) as implemented by the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 6.302-2 entitled, �Unusual and Compelling Urgency.�

5. Rationale Supporting Use of Authority Cited Above: Based on market research, as described in Section 8 of this document, the Government has determined that Hunter Strategy, LLC located at 1522 SW 13th CT Pompano Beach, Florida 33069-4711 is the only source capable of providing the required services within the Governments timeline, and therefore, there is no competition available for this acquisition.

On May 23, 2025, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between VA and Department of Defense (DoD) was signed effectively reactivating and accelerating the Electronic

Health Record Modernization (EHRM) deployment schedule. This timeline was approved by the VA Secretary and Congress to meet mandates and timelines. As part of this deployment schedule and in order for sites to be ready, there are required steps to be completed in advance of deployment. A subset of those planned deployment activities includes execution of a contract action against the Oracle EHR contract (referred to as the �A-side� of the interface) and a corresponding VHA/Healthcare Technology Management (HTM) action for creation of interfaces with existing applications, which for this particular instance includes the Michigan Net Market and Localization Restart Interfaces (which includes HINGE) which would be referred to as the �B-side� contract action (this action).

On June 12, 2025, the �A-side� contract action with Oracle (responsible for EHR-side development of the interface) was executed under Task Order 8, Contract/Order/Modification 36C10B18D5000/36C10B19N0008 P00026. The interface development work remains dependent on this instant action for the �B-side� requirements.

The project, and by extension the potential deployment, is currently on hold until this new proposed contract action is in place to develop the clinical workflow between HINGE, radiation therapy treatment planning, and treatment management systems and Oracle

EHR.

Since a VHA/HTM vendor contract was not in place by the start of the design milestone, the interfaces listed are under severe risk of not meeting the Michigan market (Ann Arbor, Detroit (radiation oncology sites)) go-live release date of April 10, 2026. In the event HINGE should not be integrated by the go-live milestone of April 2026, there is no stopgap solution that exists and there would be an absence of function integration/workflow for radiation oncology departments. This would jeopardize clinical care and VA�s overall mission because it would directly impact patient access (i.e. introduce delays in critical cancer care for Veterans) by introducing major inefficiencies in workflow and increased risk of patient harm due to errors in record-keeping, clinical decision-making, and missing data. This also increases the likelihood of physician and staff burnout due to these inefficiencies, hinders VA�s ability to execute Oracle EHR strategy in radiation oncology clinics, and presents potential financial harm due to wasted A-side contract work.

Hunter Strategy, LLC has provided support services, software and systems engineering support for the HINGE Program since 2019. Though HINGE is a Government Off-The- Shelf (GOTS) in-house custom development, the program has been supplemented by Hunter Strategy, LLC, and specifically designed for Radiation Oncology. The required work cannot be completed via in-house development, and as such VA requires a source that can complete these tasks within the Governments timelines. Hunter Strategy, LLC has worked closely with technical and functional sources within VA providing expert knowledge of the requisite software specifications, open-source interfaces, security improvements and source codes for integrating HINGE with GovCloud environment. As such, the proposed source is uniquely positioned to support VA�s complex requirements in the completion of the RESTful Application Programming Interfaces and Treatment Planning System to HINGE-Broker connection using Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) network protocol. No other source has the level of understanding of the HINGE architecture, the specific requirements of radiation oncology workflows, and the technical capabilities required to successfully and seamlessly ensure timely interfacing with Cerner Millennium. Should another vendor be selected, additional risk would be incurred as the new Contractor�s staff may not fully understand the intent and context of the complex requirements included in this requirement. Although other vendors may exist that can provide similar development services, engaging a new vendor would extend the timeline resulting in unacceptable risk for successful deployment in accordance with the mandated schedule.

Failure to award this effort as proposed will result in delays in development and integration activities that will not only increase the cost to the Government due to schedule slippage and potential rework, but could also compromise continuity of care for Veterans receiving radiation therapy services during the transition and interrupt ability to care for Veterans newly diagnosed with cancer and requiring radiotherapy services which would jeopardize VA�s mission to serve the Veteran, their families, and caregivers. To mitigate these risks and ensure a timely, cost-effective, and seamless integration effort, it is in the Government�s best interest to continue with the existing contractor, Hunter Strategy, whose capabilities, contextual knowledge, and ongoing engagement are critical to the success of this project. For these reasons, only the incumbent contractor, Hunter Strategy, is considered a responsible source capable of meeting the Government�s requirement within the necessary timeframe.

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 could meet the Government's requirements. There is no competition anticipated for this acquisition.

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

8. Market Research: VA conducted market research in August 2025 via issuance of a Sources Sought notice (ID 36C10B25Q0513) on SAM.gov Contract Opportunities on August 7, 2025 as a Request for Information (RFI), requesting capabilities statements from vendors. Five responses were received from interested sources AnythingIT, SRR International, Veterans EZ Info, Mind Computing and the proposed source. Based on review of the information provided by these sources, only the proposed source is capable of meeting the Government�s requirements in order to meet the timeline noted in Section 5 of this Justification.

9. Other Facts: None.