CONTROL NUMBER VA-26-00060048

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 firm-fixed-price order to be issued under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) V Government Wide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) for brand name Document Storage System (DSS) PeriOperative (PeriOp) Procedure Suite Manager with Planner solution which includes software, associated installation, implementation, configuration, maintenance and training.

3. Description of the Supplies or Services: The Miami Veterans Affairs Healthcare System (MVAHS) located at 1201 NW 16th St, Miami, FL 33125, has a requirement for a DSS PeriOp Procedure Suite Manager with Planner solution. MVAHS requires a solution to support its surgical services, training, and maintenance.

The solution must integrate with the Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA) and the Computerized Patient Record System (CPRS), using bidirectional communications through Health Level 7 (HL7) code and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). This integration is essential to decrease dual data entry.

The DSS PeriOp Procedure Suite Manager with Planner software solution is a VistA-integrated, graphical user interface designed to provide a constant integrated view of patient status in real-time, manage perioperative complexity, improve team communication, enhance patient safety, and improve operational efficiency by streamlining documentation and updating VistA. This solution shall support the MVAHS to better manage, track, and improve surgical performance regarding patient safety, surgical throughout, utilization and efficiency, and surgical quality of care. The solution will pull lab test and other preoperative test results such as electrocardiograms and pulmonary function tests, which in turn, assists in patient scheduling and updating patient status. The solution integrates real-time data with bi-directional workflow automation that coordinates and manages patient care. It converts data from inside VistA to real-time, usable information that will streamline and enhance the quality-of-service Veterans Health Administration provides its patients. Additionally, the solution synchronizes patients' preoperative progress against available resources, enabling clinical staff to plan surgical cases and coordinate patient progress from the initial surgical referral to their scheduled procedure.

The DSS PeriOp Procedure Suite Manager with Planner software solution includes several modules that support key dimensions of surgical workflow: the PreOp Board, which provides large screen and workstation displays for situational awareness of the surgical preparation process; the OR-Dashboard with Active Time Out, offering a comprehensive, continuously updated view of each surgical case from setup to closing;

DSS PeriOP Procedure Suite Manager CONTROL NUMBER VA-26-00060048 the OR-Schedule Board, which displays the current day’s surgical caseload in real time;

the Family Waiting Board, allowing families to track their loved one’s progress; and an analytics package designed to enhance reporting capabilities.

Following successful implementation, the Contractor shall provide maintenance and technical support on the solution to include Monday – Friday, 8am – 7pm EST technical support, bug fixes, minor release upgrades, and telephone support. The total estimated value of the proposed action is for a base year and two option years.

4. Statutory Authority: Pursuant to Revolutionary FAR Overhaul (RFO) 16.507-7(a), the following brand name requirement is being justified and approved as an exception to fair opportunity under the statutory authority of Section 41 U.S.C. 4106(c)(2) as implemented by RFO 16.507-6(b)(2), entitled “Only one awardee is capable of providing the supplies or services required at the level of quality required because the supplies or services ordered are unique or highly specialized”.

5. Rationale Supporting Use of Authority Cited Above: It was determined that limited competition is viable among resellers of the DSS PeriOp Procedure Suite Manager with Planner solution and associated installation, implementation, configuration, maintenance, and training for the Miami Veterans Affairs Healthcare System's surgical procedure suites. Only the DSS PeriOp Procedure Suite Manager with Planner solution can meet all of the Miami VA Healthcare System's requirements. Specifically, the solution is the only surgical procedure suite management software that can integrate and work within the existing VistA/CPRS system. VistA/CPRS is VA's Health Information Technology system that provides an integrated inpatient and outpatient electronic health record for VA patients. Additionally, the DSS PeriOp Manager software was developed by VistA programmers to integrate an automated solution with the VA VistA environment through bidirectional communications using Health Level 7 code and Application Programming Interfaces. No other management software is capable of integrating with the current VistA infrastructure and possesses bidirectional data flow functionality. If another brand name or software were used, the Miami VA Healthcare System would have to implement it into the current VA infrastructure, which would require a complete redesign and redevelopment of the existing infrastructure and interfaces.

Redeveloping the VistA infrastructure to enable integration with an additional application would require significant modernization of legacy components and the development of new interoperability mechanisms. This effort would involve substantial coding, architectural redesign, and updates to data exchange pathways to ensure alignment with enterprise technical standards and long term sustainment goals. Given the complexity of the existing environment and the need to maintain uninterrupted clinical and operational functionality, the redevelopment activities are projected to span an estimated one to three year period. This timeline includes core development, followed by comprehensive testing, validation, and quality assurance phases necessary to confirm system stability, performance, and full compliance with VA technical and security requirements. require development activities by VistA programmers over an estimated one to three-year period, accompanied by substantial testing and validation phases. This estimate is based on similar software development and installation efforts.

In addition, the DSS PeriOp Procedure Suite Manager with Planner solution is the only software that can meet all of the Miami VA Healthcare System's functional requirements. Specifically, only the DSS PeriOp Procedure Suite Manager with Planner solution's PeriOp Board maps VistA/CPRS data elements to PeriOp. The Operating Room (OR) Dashboard verifies the mapping of VistA/CPRS data elements to OR- Dashboard visuals. The OR-Schedule Board allows the user to view the current day's surgical caseload as an aggregated view in real-time. The display shows the current status of all surgical cases and procedure rooms, thus enabling Miami VA Healthcare System perioperative managers to focus on the progress of cases while proactively canceling or rescheduling cases to allow for optimal procedure room utilization. With bidirectional flow of data to and from VistA, this case canceling/rescheduling functionality is automatically reflected in VistA, thereby streamlining documentation practices and preventing perioperative bottlenecks. The use of another brand name DSS PeriOp data system with a platform incompatible with the VistA/CPRS platform would also result in doubling VHA medical personnel workload for the input of necessary data entries, as every piece of data would require manual entry first into the DSS PeriOp data system and then separately into the VistA/CPRS system. This makes it impossible for the disparate systems to bidirectionally share information in real-time, increases the risks of data entry errors, omissions, and contraindications, and creates inefficiencies in the use of available procedure room resources. This also increases risk to patients due to poorly coordinated patient data and the inability to optimize the use of that data in real-time.

Finally, DSS PeriOp Procedure Suite Manager with Planner software is a proprietary software product. Therefore, only DSS or its authorized resellers can provide maintenance on its software product. The proprietary code is required to ensure all DSS PeriOp software updates and patches are properly pushed through the fielded software and to ensure the software is properly configured. Access to this code is also required to ensure all services provided on the DSS PeriOp Procedure Suite Manager with Planner software are properly configured. Access to DSS proprietary data and source code is required to provide the necessary software maintenance on DSS PeriOp Manager with Planner software. Only DSS and its authorized resellers can provide the associated knowledge base-specific installation, implementation, configuration, and training services for the DSS PeriOp Procedure Suite Manager with Planner software, as both require access to required proprietary code and technical data. If DSS PeriOp Manager is not procured, the Miami VA Healthcare System's surgical procedure suites will lack maximum VistA/CPRS integration with its perioperative activities. The MVAHS would be required to continue using manual processes resulting in operational harm due to reduced OR utilization, decreased patient safety, and inefficient communication.

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 DSS PeriOp Procedure Suite Manager licenses, as well as software maintenance and support. In accordance with RFO 16.507-7(c)(1)(i), this justification will be provided with the solicitation to all appropriate NASA SEWP V GWAC holders. Furthermore, in accordance with RFO 5.301, 16.507-6(f), and 16.507- 7(c), the award notice for this action will be synopsized on the Contract Opportunities website 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 market place that would enable future actions to be competed.

8. Market Research: Market research was conducted by Government subject matter experts in June 2026 through web-based research to identify potential perioperative workflow and scheduling solutions that could meet the technical needs of the MVAHS.

The review included systems such as Patient Information Clinical Information System (PICIS) and Core Mobile, both of which offer surgical workflow and communication capabilities. However, neither solution meets MVAHS requirements because they lack native integration with the existing VistA/CPRS architecture and cannot support the real-time, bidirectional data exchange needed for perioperative operations.

Implementing either option would require extensive redevelopment and custom interfaces, making them infeasible and misaligned with VA infrastructure.

Further review of available procurement channels confirmed that only two NASA SEWP V resellers, Blue Tech, Inc. and Minburn Technology Group, LLC were identified as small businesses capable of supplying the required brand-name DSS PeriOp Procedure Suite Manager with Planner solution. This supports the expectation that at least two small businesses can meet the procurement requirement for the brand-name product.

Based on market research into alternatives such as PICIS and Core Mobile, neither product can meet our technical requirements without extensive redevelopment.

It was confirmed that the only authorized resellers on NASA SEWP were Blue Tech, Inc. and Minburn Technology Group, LLC. Blue Tech, Inc. and Minburn Technology Group, LLC are both small businesses, so there is a reasonable expectation that two small businesses can provide the required brand name DSS PeriOp Procedure Suite Manager with Planner solution.

9. Other Facts: N/A

Technical/Requirements Certification I certify that the supporting data under my cognizance, which are included in this justification, are accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Date

Fair and Reasonable Cost Determination I hereby determine that the anticipated price to the Government for this contract action will be fair and reasonable based on anticipation of competition and discounts among NASA SEWP V GWAC resellers of the brand name Document Storage Systems PeriOp Procedure Suite Manager with Planner solution. Additionally, catalog pricing for SEWP V GWAC holders has already been determined by NASA to be fair and reasonable.

Finally, price analysis shall be conducted by comparing the successful quotation with the independent government cost estimate.

Contracting Officer Certification/Approval I certify that this justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

8/3/26

8/3/26

7/31/26