JEFO_NCI_CBIIT-DSC_redacted_beta.sam.pdf

1. Agency and Contracting Activity:

a. Agency:

Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Information Technology Acquisition and Assessment Center (NITAAC), Assisted Acquisition Services Branch

b. Requesting / Sponsoring Office:

National Cancer Institute (NCI) Center for Biomedical Informatics and Information Technology (CBIIT)

c. Program Manager:

Sue Pan Pansu@nih.gov 240.276.5671

d. Contracting Officer:

Kelly Lael Contracting Officer, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Logistics and Acquisition Operations (OLAO) Office of Acquisitions (OA) 6011 Executive Boulevard, Suite 501 Rockville, Maryland 20852 kelly.lael@nih.gov

2. Nature and/or description of the action being approved.

a. Acquisition Purpose and Objective The scope of this task order is for contractor support to develop, maintain and support the NCI Chief Information Officer’s (CIO) efforts in strategic planning and developing technical approaches, processes, policies, and technical Information Technology (IT) products in support of the implementation and use of information technology resources within for the larger NCI. Additionally, this task order has established contractor support for the NCI to stand up its digital services center (DSC). This JEFO is to increase the ceiling of this already established task order.

JUSTIFICATION FOR AN EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY (JEFO)

mailto:Pansu@nih.gov mailto:kelly.lael@nih.gov

b. Program Background This task order is ongoing and was competed under NITAAC CIO-SP3 SB as a women owned small business set aside. The digital services center was originally set up with fully funded core work CLINs and multiple CLINs per period of performance for optional quantities. Once this center was set up it has become increasingly used by NIH customers resulting in many of the planned optional quantities being exercised. However, due to the onset of COVID-19, the service center has been increasingly called upon for assistance in ways that were not anticipated at the time of task order award. As the NCI continues to support COVID-19 related needs other NIH programs have had less access to support services in which this task order was originally built for.

Additionally, the NCI continues to receive more work requests for COVID- 19 related work for the final two option periods. This JEFO is to request to approve an increase in optional quantity CLINs thereby increasing the task order ceiling to accommodate currently anticipated work (see 3 g below for exact details).

Periods of performance Base 09/09/2019 to 03/08/2020 O1 03/09/2020 to 03/08/2021 O2 03/09/2021 to 03/08/2022 O3 03/09/2022 to 09/08/2022

Task order HHSN316201200134W 75N98119F00012 is performed by:

Incentive Technology Group, LLC 2550 S. Clark Street Suite 1200 Arlington, Virginia 22202

To date, this task order (through the base and option period one) has obligated $21,012,605.72 of the total potential task order amount of $53,837,982.63.

This JEFO is seeking to increase the current ceiling by $13,706,597.00. If approved the new ceiling value would be $67,544,579.63.

3. Description of the supplies or services required to meet the agency’s needs:

a. Program title.

National Cancer Institute Digital Services Center. The objectives of this task order are to acquire contractor support services to assist NCI to stand up and operate a digital services center; provide a variety of technical support to both new and ongoing application development, documentation, and maintenance efforts; and deliver products that effectively meet approved requirements and established architectures

b. Program description.

This program supports the NCI CIO’s efforts in strategic planning and developing technical approaches, processes, policies, and technical IT products. The outcome of this program includes the implementation and use of IT resources across the NCI.

These digital support services under this task order are commercially available. The increase to the ceiling will impact the program by being able to support the larger NCI with specific information technology projects.

c. Requirement type.

□ Support services (non-research and development)

□ Supplies/equipment

□ Information technology (IT) Supplies X Information technology (IT) Services

□ Other (specify):

d. Type of action.

□ New requirement X Follow-on: Under an exception to fair opportunity, increase the task order work and ceiling

e. Proposed contract/order type.

□ Firm-fixed-price

□ Other fixed-price (specify, e.g. fixed-price award fee, fixed price incentive fee

□ Cost Plus Fixed Fee

□ Time and materials X Labor Hour

f. Acquisition identification number

Task order HHSN316201200134W 75N98119F00012

g. Total estimated dollar value and performance/delivery period.

The total increased amount of ceiling is estimated at $13,706,597.00 for the remaining two periods of performance. Specifically, option year two will be increased by $9,060,103.70 and option year three will be increased by $4,646,493.30. This JEFO is seeking to increase the current ceiling by $13,706,597.00. If approved the new ceiling value would be $67,544,579.63. These potential projects are funded by other NIH programs and are dependent on many internal conditions but are estimated and intended to be met by creating new optional quantities (see narrative in paragraph six for detailed explanations on the projects):

REDACTED

JEFO Total $ 13,706,597.00

4. Identification of the justification rationale [see 16.505(a)(4) or 16.505(b)(2)] for exceptions to the fair opportunity process.

a. Interest of Economy and Efficiency. FAR Subpart 16.505(b)(2)(i)(C) – The order must be issued on a sole-source basis in the interest of economy and efficiency because it is a logical follow-on to an order already issued under the contract, provided that all awardees were given a fair opportunity to be considered for the original order.

Once the digital services center was set up it has become increasingly used by NIH customers resulting in many of the planned optional quantities being exercised. However, due to the onset of COVID-19 the service center has been increasingly called upon for assistance in ways that were not anticipated at the time of task order award. As the NCI continues to support COVID-19 related needs other NIH programs have had less access to support services in which this task order was originally built for.

This successful task order has used many of the optional quantities CLINs to accommodate the growing mission need to assist in COVID-19 and other support services. The NCI digital services center has only this contract in place to support this type of work. Given the rapid evolving nature of COVID-19 there is an inherent and logical need to make continued use of this task order already supporting this type of work. The mission need for NCI’s digital support services has increased and is estimated to continue to increase.

This task order was awarded under an OMB designated best in class vehicle to achieve available efficiencies, reasonable pricing and effective technical solutions. If the NCI were to solicit for this work it would likely go to this or another best in class vehicle which could easily be a duplication of effort in administration, potentially cause undue delays let alone the cost to the government to award a similar task order.

Due to the inhouse resources being so successful and the growing need to support additional unanticipated projects, it is in the best interest to increase the ceiling of this task order by $13,706,597.00. If approved the new ceiling value would be $67,544,579.63.

5. Determination by the Contracting Officer that the anticipated cost to be fair and reasonable.

This task order already has established labor categories and fair and reasonable prices. This additional work is technically identical to the current scope and it will be organized in the same manner as the competed task order. Optional quantities will be estimated and added with a ceiling in the optional CLINs however the quantities will not be exercised until there is a fully defined and priced project(s). Discounts were requested and provided at the level of the task order and additional discounts will be requested at the time of exercising the optional quantities.

6. Any other facts supporting the justification.

The anticipated additional technical need is as follows:

Contractor development resources are required to support NCI in COVID-19 related efforts. As this work is extremely time sensitive, it requires immediate development action. Because this work is time sensitive, we need to increase the ceiling of this task order rather than wait for the next contract to be put in place.

To accomplish this work within the mission time frames required, additional development resources are needed to focus on these projects at short notice.

This is to ensure a quality end-to-end product that meets the business needs, has minimal to zero production defects, and is delivered as part of rapid development efforts to meet the deadlines imposed as an inherent impact of the pandemic.

Potential COVID-19 Implementation Projects include Application Development, dashboards and exposure notification analytics. Examples of Application Development projects include Patient and cohort studies that provide secure data intake and facilitate tracking the effect of contributing factors to the severity of COVID-19. These studies support patient enrollment, management and data gathering such as questionnaires. COVID-19 Dashboards assist in data sharing for both Intramural investigators and to the public community.

Examples include recording the protocol samples in a stable biorepository and providing shareable public access to display COVID-19 data trends and progress.

Working with Apple, Google, MITRE, and many state governments, Exposure Notification efforts assist COVID-19 contact tracing efforts, providing aggregated statistics to the public health authority while protecting user privacy. These above COVID-19 projects and activities are time-critical and involve technical design, build, deployment, management, reporting, data analytics, architectural and operational supports.

DSC Optional efforts are needed to support new projects required for CBIIT and its support of NCI divisions, offices, and centers (DOCs). Technical support includes technical analysis, implementation, architectural support, project management and subject matter expertise including Cloud Architecture. These optional efforts provide value across the CBIIT Portfolio and involve the following projects: Grants Modernization, CHARMS Phase II, Electronic Grants management system (eGrants) and Office of Acquisitions (OA) Modernization, Help Desk Consolidation and the Budget Utilization Dashboard.

The current Grants technology architecture (supporting over 15 years) has challenges with legacy modules still requiring re-design with deprecated technologies that are out of general support. Current application architecture with tightly coupled database design is harder to change and maintain and limits enhanced User Interface and Experience. To address these challenges, Grants Modernization activities are needed including to define the future state roadmap, design and build grant processing capabilities as discrete, collaborative services and business-centric application programming interfaces, leverage managed cloud services, and employmodern frameworks that enable engaging, responsive user interfaces.

In 2020, CBIIT inherited the Office of Acquisitions Systems (OASYS) / Federally Funded Research and Development Center Contract Administration System (FCAS) and electronic grants (eGrants) system. The OASYS/FCAS systems support processes that fall under the Acquisition Lifecycle - from Program need definition, through solicitations, through contract administration. Additional end-to-end implementation support is needed to better streamline and automate these processes and expand the usage of cloud architecture with robust User interfaces (UIs) to enable real-time collaboration for government acquisition staff and external vendors. eGrants is NCI’s official grant file system and houses all NCI internal file documentation, correspondence, and work products pertaining to grant award administration and monitoring. eGrants was the first electronic grants file system developed at the NIH, supporting 500 plus end-users. Thorough architectural design and system implementation are needed to grow beyond current operations and maintenance (O&M) efforts to define and execute system modernization including refined user interfaces, system integration and cloud architecture.

The Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics (DCEG) has additional requirements to build upon CHARMS, which provides the Clinical Genetic Branch (CGB) of the NCI with an online workflow to review and enroll participants in Family Cohort cancer studies. The goal for CHARMS Phase II is to extend the RASopathies study (aka RAS) beyond the initial requirements of RAS survey, the consolidation and modernization of the Referral System (LFS), Family and Individual Registry System (FAIR) and Study Management System (SMS). This is a significant effort to ensure that not only are new studies implemented but to fully establish a scalable technical architecture for future studies. The additional RAS requirements include building new questionnaires and completing technical assessment of automation capabilities. Activities include architecture definition, system development, project management, system analysis, database design and support and quality assurance (QA).

CBIIT continues to fully serve its customers in their business needs including the use of multiple technology platforms and placing an emphasis on technology consolidation for faster time-to-market and cost savings. One specific area with increased focus is Help Desk Services. Many DOCs are leveraging manual or disparate implementations to support their customer bases. Additional Implementation support resources for low-code development such as ServiceNow are needed to rapidly build automated Help Desk solutions for these stakeholders to increase automation and standardization and reduce help desk costs associated to technical support and technology.

Data Analytics support is needed to expand these data capabilities for NCI’s Budget Utilization Dashboard (BUD) Initiative. The overall objective of BUD is to automate data load, processing and reporting across various data sources, modernize overall Business intelligence Architecture and establish data governance standards. This is an expansive effort to establish and build full-scale cloud infrastructure including technical analysis, management, design, data analysis and implementation, reporting and governance.

Additional dedicated resource support is needed for Microsoft Project Online and Project Web App (PWA), to help drive the adoption of best practices across project teams, and software license management to own and streamline support for licenses across NCI. DOCs (e.g. DCEG) require additional developers with current full stack and DevOps capabilities as these stakeholders augment their technology projects including the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotic Process Automation (RPA).

The task order is currently in progress and while this additional work does exclude fair opportunity, it is most efficient and economical to the government by adding about 20% to the total ceiling.

7. Statement of the actions, if any, the agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers that led to the exception to fair opportunity before any subsequent acquisition for the supplies or services is made.

The NCI will continue to have a need for contractor support in this digital services center environment. There is less than two years performance potential under this task order. This task order was to stand up the digital services center, the NCI is currently incorporating lessons learned from this effort into its next contract. The NCI is currently creating best practices to manage its business practices for future contracts, including scheduling projects by fiscal year and quarter. The CIO has established a consolidated contract practice for the NCI so all planned activities will be accounted for as well. This task order did account for optional quantities and projects to support other NIH programs but it did not plan for COVID-19 type needs. For future requirements, the government will give due consideration in balancing optional quantities with actual needs like it did for this task order. The government will be mindful to consider COVID-19 like emergency needs and balance that without creating an inflated optional quantities type task order.

8. Program office certification.

CERTIFICATION: This is to certify that the portions of this justification that have been developed by the undersigned program office personnel, including supporting information and/or data verifying the Government’s minimum needs or requirements, or other rationale for an exception to fair opportunity, are accurate and complete.

Official Name & Title Signature Date

Program Manager Sue Pan, IT Engineering Program Manager and Digital Services and Solutions Branch Chief, NCI/CBIIT IT

Program Manager’s Immediate Supervisor

Jeff Shilling

CIO for NCI

9. Contracting Officer Certification.

This is to certify that the justification for the proposed acquisition has been reviewed and that to the best of my knowledge and belief the information and/or data provided to support the rationale and recommendation for approval is accurate and complete.

CERTIFICATION: This is to certify that the justification for the proposed acquisition has been reviewed and that to the best of my knowledge and belief the information and/or data provided to support the rationale and recommendation for approval is accurate and complete.

Official Name & Title Signature Date

Contracting Officer Kelly Lael

Contracting Officer

10. Chief of the Contracting Office and Competition Advocate Signature.

This is to certify the determination of the approving officials below, that the justification for the proposed acquisition has been reviewed and the circumstances described apply to this order.

Official Name & Title Signature Date

Chief of the Contracting Office

Brian Goodger

Associate Director OLAO

3/16/2021

Head of the Contracting Activity

"FOR"

Diane J. Frasier, NIH, HCA

Competition Advocate or Designated Official

Dr. Richard G. Wyatt, Deputy Director, OIR