JA PolyAnalyst_Redacted.pdf

Control Number VA-25-00015755

JA template - FAR Part 6_OCT_29_2020

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: The proposed action is for a sole-source, firm-fixed price, contract with a 12-month base period and four 12-month option periods with Megaputer Intelligence, Inc. to continue brand name PolyAnalyst software maintenance and support for the National Center for Patient Safety (NCPS) located at 24 Frank Lloyd Wright Drive Lobby M, Ann Arbor, MI 48105.

3. Description of Supplies or Services: The proposed action is to continue the current brand name PolyAnalyst software maintenance and support for the Veterans Health Agency (VHA) NCPS. PolyAnalyst is a brand name comprehensive data science mining software platform designed to extract actionable insights from large volumes of structured and unstructured data, including text, by utilizing powerful natural language processing (NLP) capabilities, advanced statistical algorithms, and machine learning techniques, allowing users to perform text mining, data mining, classification, clustering, sentiment analysis, and predictive modeling. PolyAnalyst is the software that the VHA NCPS uses for performing text analytics and natural language processing of narrative text and structured data housed in NCPS databases. PolyAnalyst supports critical business operations within the NCPS such as compiling weekly Electronic Health Record Modernization (EHRM) reports, NCPS Quarterly and Annual Reports, VA leadership and executive strategic planning reports and is utilized to answer Congressional, Office of the Inspector General (OIG), and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) information requests.

The Contractor shall supply the required brand name PolyAnalyst software maintenance and technical support services for the VHA NCPS. Specifically, the Contractor shall provide software support Monday through Friday from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM EST, provide a four (4)-hour initial response time, software updates including bug fixes and new version updates, remote application support Monday through Friday 7:00 AM to 5:00 PM EST with an estimated 99.9% software uptime guarantee. This software is a term-based subscription that is housed on VA servers and not software as a service. The period of performance for this effort shall be a twelve (12)-month base period with four (4) twelve (12)-month option periods, if exercised.

PolyAnalyst Software Maintenance and Support Renewal Control Number VA-25-00015755

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-

5. Rationale Supporting Use of Authority Cited Above: The proposed source for this action is Megaputer Intelligence, Inc., 1600 West Bloomfield Road, Suite E, Bloomington, IN 47403. This requirement can only be provided by the Original Software Developer as it is a proprietary software with no authorized resellers.

Based on market research, as detailed in Section 8 of this justification, no other source can provide the required brand name PolyAnalyst software maintenance and technical support, as described in Section 3.

The NCPS Patient Safety Information System is a de-identified internal, confidential, and non-punitive reporting system. It allows NCPS to electronically document and analyze patient safety information from across VA so that lessons learned can benefit the organization. A systems approach to problem solving requires a willingness to report problems or potential problems so that solutions can be developed and implemented. A combined total of more than 1,000,000 root cause analysis reports and safety reports have been entered into the reporting system since it was established 13 years ago.

In Fiscal Year 2016, NCPS commenced utilization of the PolyAnalyst software and developed the necessary environment and customization to analyze the data that is compiled within the Patient Information System. Specifically, Megaputer Intelligence, Inc. worked with NCPS to customize design functionalities that solve specific needs not recognized by NCPS as initial requirements for text-mining software. In particular, a case management ability was designed into the software allowing categorization of case reports by software modeling to be reviewed by human and if necessary, easily overridden and put into alternative categories by human click and drag action. Additionally, ancillary programs have been written at NCPS to aid in the design and construction of taxonomy structures that complements the usage of PolyAnalyst. Complex taxonomy templates created, or that already exist as legacy work, outside of PolyAnalyst can be algorithmically marked-up into a language that is recognized by PolyAnalyst in an uploading process. The process produces taxonomies that are identical to those that would normally be manually produced within PolyAnalyst. This is a marriage of NCPS development with the PolyAnalyst software that produces unique abilities to categorize NCPS data.

This brand name specialized analytical software PolyAnalyst is only available from a single source, Megaputer Intelligence, Inc. The award to any other source would result in a substantial duplication of costs (software licensing, training, conversion of existing work and learning curve) to the Government having already accumulated seventeen (17)-years worth of research data and invested nine (9)-years of employee training and development towards NCPS employees becoming proficient users of the PolyAnalyst software and learning to develop coding to compliment the PolyAnalyst software. Further, it is expected that the duplication cost will not be recovered through the competitive process which will result in unacceptable delays towards fulfilling the critical NCPS's requirements.

In addition, the technical software support services are application customer service support and software release updates. Application customer service shall be provided by the Contractor, Monday through Friday from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM EST, provide a four (4)-hour initial response time, software updates including bug fixes and new version updates, remote application support Monday through Friday 7:00 AM to 5:00 PM EST with an estimated 99.9% software uptime guarantee. In order for any source to be able to provide the required associated technical support services, direct access to the PolyAnalyst proprietary source code would be required to generate fixes, patches and updates. Furthermore, direct access to the PolyAnalyst prioprietary source code would be required to guarantee an estimated 99.9% software uptime. Any other vendor would not be be able to access the proprietary source code to allow for the required technical support services and software guarantee.

Without the brand name PolyAnalyst data science mining software maintenance and technical support services, it would endanger the NCPS ability safety efforts, continue to develop and nurture a culture of safety throughout the VHA and continue the goal of reduction and prevention of inadvertent harm to VA patients.

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

. There is no competition anticipated for this acquisition. 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 market research in March 2024 by reviewing similar data/text mining software and software maintenance via web-based research. The VA technical experts reviewed alternative products, and determined that each had the general capabilities to perform the proposed effort; however, only PolyAnalyst possessed the extensive taxonomy classifications, legacy data preservation, customer customization and code insertion required for this effort. Additionally, VA technical experts reviewed the alternative packages to ascertain if they can offer support for PolyAnalyst software currently in use and it was determined that they

Additionally, PolyAnalyst connects to the Corporate Data Warehouse (CDW), which is the business intelligence clinical data system developed by the Office of Information & Technology and used for business management, clinical and administrative research, and healthcare system innovation at the VA. It stores clinical, financial, and administrative information from a host of different data sources including interfacing with the Electronic Health Record database. The CDW is one of several different data sources NCPS uses to fulfill this mission along with the national patient safety/root cause analysis reporting databases (Joing Patient Safety Reporting), as well as some of our newer databases stored in the NCPS Salesforce platform. Much of the information stored in these systems are in text fields.

PolyAnalyst provides the capability for the Analyst and Statistician teams at NCPS to extract patient safety related data from these narrative fields. These applications and SQL server databases create an extensive cross platform utilization that is not authorized with any other software.

Finally, the Contract Specialist (CS) contacted Megaputer Intelligence, Inc. and received a letter dated December 24, 2024, wherein Megaputer Intelligence, Inc.

Chief Executive Officer confirmed that Megaputer does not authorize any other entity to sell, support, train, or provide maintenance for its software.

Based upon this research, it was determined that there are not any other similar text mining software products that provide all the required functionality. Therefore, no competition is anticipated for this effort. Based on this market research, it is determined that there are no other vendors capable of providing the Government with the required PolyAnalyst software maintenance and technical support services.

As a result, this effort will be solicited as a sole source to Megaputer Intelligence, Inc., 1600 West Bloomfield Road, Suite E, Bloomington, IN 47403.

9. Other Facts: None.