JA Omnicell (Final - Redacted).pdf

Control Number VA-23-00043081

JUSTIFICATION FOR A SOLE SOURCE AWARD

FOR CERTAIN COMMERCIAL ITEMS

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 (FFP) effort for the procurement of brand name Omnicell XT Automated Medication Dispensing Cabinets

(AMDC).

3. Description of Supplies or Services: The VA, Simulation Learning, Evaluation, Assessment, and Research Network (SimLEARN) National Simulation, Validation, Evaluation Testing (SimVET) Center (NSC), requires the procurement of an Omnicell MED-FRM-102 XT MED 2-CELL Hardware Cabinet to operate with Oracle/Cerner Millennium Electronic Health Record (EHR), and an Omnicell MED-FRM-106 XT MED 1-4-Height Hardware Cabinet to operate with Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA) EHR. The procurement shall include the OmniCenter interface to either AMDC and EHR and to the Veterans Health Information Systems which will address both the viability of this system to run on VA Information Technology (IT) systems as well as the impacts on clinical workflow with the full utilization of this new technology. AMDCs have improved greatly over the past 10 years and are critical to the delivery of both inpatient and outpatient care. Most importantly, these cabinets are capable of biomedical device integration; a process where a medical device automatically documents clinical data, such as vital signs or medications given, in the current state (VistA) and desired state (Oracle/Cerner Millennium) simulated EHRs.

Thus, allowing healthcare personnel to focus on simulated clinical care instead of looking at a screen or typing on a keyboard. Incorporating these automated medication dispensing cabinets into the simulated Emergency Department, simulated Operating Room, and simulated Intensive Care simulation areas will greatly increase the fidelity of NSC’s simulations and enable SimVET to provide realistic and meaningful simulations for systems testing, workflow optimization, or training. The SimLEARN NSC is currently running aged Omnicell devices at its Orlando, Florida location. The current version of hardware and software at NSC is outdated and past end of life. VA’s existing Omnicell brand name software and hardware inventory includes 47,220 Omnicell AMDC devices throughout VA pharmacy and 28,233 Omnicell AMDC devices throughout non-pharmacy locations for a total of 75,453 across the Enterprise. All of the SimLEARN NSC’s networked Omnicell XT AMDCs need to be replaced with new AMDCs, installed, and configured to the NSC’s simulated EHRs (E.g., Oracle/Cerner Millenium and VistA).

The proposed action is to provide setup and installation of the hardware, OmniCenter interface and virtual servers on the user system and to provide user business process training to support the replacement of NSC’s existing Omnicell AMDC with the Omnicell MED-FRM-102 XT MED 2-CELL Hardware Cabinet and Omnicell MED-FRM-106 XT MED 1-4-Height Hardware Cabinet and OmniCenter interface. The contractor shall conduct integration of the OmniCenter interface and virtual servers of the Omnicell AMDCs to the Oracle/Cerner Millenium and VistA EHRs. Delivery and installation of hardware shall be within 60 days after receipt of the contract award. The maintenance Period of Performance shall be 12 months from the date of award, with four 12-month options.

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 TrillaMed LLC (TrillaMed), 30100 Telegraph Rd. Suite 366, Bingham Farms, MI 48025. TrillaMed is a Small Business Administration’s Veteran Small Business Certification (VetCert) verified Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB). TrillaMed has previously provided supplies and services for VA and has proven that it has the necessary capabilities to meet all the Government’s requirements. Omnicell has affirmed that TrillaMed is the only authorized reseller of the Omnicell products. Considering the above, the Government’s technical experts have determined that TrillaMed can meet all the Government’s requirements and is considered a responsible SDVOSB.

Only the brand name Omnicell can meet VA’s requirements. Due to the proprietary nature of the Omnicell XT ADMCs brand name hardware and software, only Omnicell or its reseller can provide the required hardware replacement and software upgrade that can continue to build upon VA’s existing Omnicell ADMCs.

Additionally, no other brand name will be interoperable or compatible with the currently fielded Omnicell infrastructure at NSC. Specifically, the current system and software communicates through a source code that is based on Omnicells’ proprietary data. No other software can provide this communication capability without this source code. Existing Omnicell brand name hardware and software inventory includes that VA is currently over 65 percent of Omnicell Prescription (Rx) AMDCs with full interfaces to Cerner and VistA existing EHRs. In order for another entity to provide the required functionality and required hardware replacement and software upgrade of the Omnicell XT AMDCs, VA would have to initiate a procurement for an entirely new hardware and software solution and replace existing hardware and software platforms, infrastructure, and maintenance schedules. This action would result in additional costs which would not be recouped through competition. Therefore, only Omnicell or its resellers are capable of providing required hardware replacement and software upgrade.

In addition to the SimVET initiative, the Omnicell XT AMDCs hardware replacement and software upgrade is needed to support the VA’s IT visibility to the Network initiative. Visibility is another VA Chief Information Officer—sponsored program to share status’ (software, patches, vulnerabilities, up/down status, etc) among VA network medical devices. Furthermore, any other brand name software cannot accomplish this because another product cannot communicate, nor integrate with the Omnicell XT AMDC devices. Additionally, data monitored and provided by another vendor will not integrate with the existing toolset, which is based on Omnicells’ brand name OmniCenter software interface. Clinical competency will be negatively impacted if the VA is unable to train the VA’s clinical staff using the latest technology which will impact the Veteran care when their healthcare requires the use of these AMDCs.

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 meet the Government’s requirements. Additionally, the proposed action will be synopsized on the Contracting Opportunities Page in accordance with FAR 5.201. Any proposals that are received shall be evaluated.

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

8. Market Research: VA technical experts conducted web-based market research in April 2023 to determine if competition was viable for this action. Specifically, the VA technical experts reviewed similar software providers from alternative vendors such as Becton Dickinson. The VA technical experts determined that these products did not meet VA’s requirement due to their lack of interoperability with the existing EHR infrastructure at NSC and could not avoid the duplicative time and costs as outlined in Section 5 of this justification. Replacing the already existing devices at NSC will allow VA to continue testing the Omnicell AMDCs in a controlled setting, which will assist VA senior leadership decision-making. Additionally, VA networking Subject Matter Experts regularly review industry trade publications and conduct internet research to ascertain if any other brand name hardware and software is available. Based on all of these market research efforts, the Government’s technical experts have determined that only Omnicell brand name hardware and software can meet all of VA’s needs for this effort.

VA issued a Request for Information (RFI) on the Contract Opportunities page in July 2023 to determine the availability of vendors that can provide the brand name Omnicell products. The RFI included the draft Omnicell XT AMDC Performance Work Statement (PWS), a list of technical requirements, and requested industry to provide company information.

The RFI was posted on July 28, 2023, via the Contracting Opportunities page and closed with two responses. The Government technical experts thoroughly reviewed both responses to determine the vendors’ abilities to meeting the PWS requirements.

Responses were received from: Omnicell (Large Business) and Trillamed (Service- Disabled Veteran-Owned Small). Both Omnicell and Trillamed were found capable of meeting the Governments requirements. The contracting office confirmed with Omnicell that Trillamed is the only authorized reseller of Omnicell products. VA determined that in the interests of maximizing the utilization of SDVOSBs, VA intends to award the contract to Trillamed.

9. Other Facts: N/A.