JEFO_NPIRS_service_contract _IHS_REDACTED.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:

Indian Health Services (IHS) Office of Information Technology (OIT) Division of Data Management and Analytics (DDMA)

Program Manager:

Vanessa Weaver Vanessa.weaver@ihs.gov 301.633.1716

c. Contracting Officer:

Kelly Lael 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

This JEFO is to increase the work to this task order for option years one, two, three and four.

This increase is needed to support the unplanned and unexpected needs of the Division of Data Management and Analytics (DDMA), National Patient Information Reporting System (NPIRS) Investment. This increased work will accommodate currently anticipated work and assume work in support of the Division of Epidemiology (see 6 below for more details). It will also satisfy work in the backlog and providing critical data that meets unexpected, unplanned mission critical agency initiatives and directives.

b. Project Background

This task order is ongoing and was competed under NITAAC CIO-SP3 SB as a service disabled veteran owned small business set aside. The NPIRS Service

JUSTIFICATION FOR AN EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY (JEFO)

mailto:Vanessa.weaver@ihs.gov mailto:kelly.lael@nih.gov

Operations and Maintenance Services contract was originally set up with fully funded core work CLINs and multiple optional work CLINs to support forecasted work.

However, once the contract was awarded additional new or unknown requirements became known and the demands on the task order increased.

Although the task order accounted for surge work, as NPIRS continues to support COVID-19 and other population health crisis (Opioid, HIV, STDs, etc.) in increasing data calls and reports including from the Congress. DDMA needs to be able to scale subject matter experts and technical resources to sufficiently meet the day-to-day activities and new work in support of the Epidemiology Data Mart requirements. DDMA continues to have a need to support unplanned data requests from all IHS, which can come from headquarters program offices, service units and facilities as applicable.

Periods of performance Period Start date End date Base 03/20/2023 01/19/2024 Option 1 01/20/2024 01/19/2025 Option 2 01/20/2025 01/19/2026 Option 3 01/20/2026 01/19/2027 Option 4 01/20/2027 01/19/2028

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

a. Project title.

The National Patient Information Reporting System (NPIRS) Operations & Maintenance.

b. Project description.

DDMA received a requirement from the Indian Health Service (IHS) Office of Public Health Support, Division of Epidemiology and Disease Prevention (OPHS/DEDP). As this division will lose dedicated support in September 2024, DDMA will assume some of their duties such as critical architecture, reporting and analytics support. To cover this gap, the work currently being performed by the OPHS and DEDP now needs to be covered by DDMA under this support contract. DDMA must now maintain the Epidemiology Data Mart (EDM) and ensure day to day operations and availability of the data architecture. They must now also maintain mission critical reporting and analytics for the Tribal Epidemiology Centers (TECs). Should IHS not be able to meet these needs, it would violate data sharing agreements with Tribal and Urban Organizations and put American Indian American Native (AI/AN) patient health at risk and impede the ability for IHS to provide disease surveillance and assist Indians, Tribes, Tribal Organizations and Urban Indian communities in promoting public health.

DDMA also continues to be inundated with unplanned requests for support services. Most recent has been support for the Indian Health Service Data Strategy that establishes a comprehensive and integrated approach for collecting, analyzing and utilizing health data to improve the quality of healthcare services provided to Native Americans and Alaska Native communities. The analytic solutions help the agency to enhance data-driven decision making, promote health equity and drive continuous improvement in healthcare outcomes. The IHS had not known this work would be required at the time this task order was established. To wait to complete this work until a new contract is in place would impede the agency mission to support these communities.

Adding support as described in this document under this task order is aligned to the current services that are provided under the NPIRS service contract. The additional support for the Epidemiology architecture, database support, software upgrades, data pipeline/exchange processes, and report/analytic development will ensure mission critical data continues to be provided to Division of Epidemiology and Disease Prevention (DEDP) and tribal and urban organizations to promote insight into health problems, socioeconomic conditions, geography and ensure other related risk factors are not greatly impacted or abandoned. Projects sponsored by the Epidemiology division include such tasks as Influenza, National Immunization Reporting and other projects that target services that improve health care services needed by populations served.

Since DDMA, via the NPIRS Service Contract, provides support for most Indian Health Service program offices, an increase in the task order ceiling is required to support new, unplanned or emergent ad-hoc enterprise reporting and analytics solutions. The scope of this request is to increase contractor support to meet the demand for information to support mission critical directives and ad-hoc requests for data to support enterprise reporting and analytic requirements. The increase to the ceiling will impact the program by being able to support the increase in the demand for information for all levels of the agency, i.e., headquarters, areas, service units, facilities and support data request from inter-agency and external entities as approved by agency governing bodies.

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 Follow-on X Other (specify): Modification of existing task order

e. Proposed contract/order type.

X Firm-fixed-price Other fixed-price (specify, e.g. fixed-price award fee, fixed price incentive fee Cost Plus Fixed Fee

Time and materials Labor Hour Other (specify):

f. Acquisition identification number

Task order HHSN316201800023W 75N98123F00001

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

The total increased amount to this task order is $ REDACTED. To date $ REDACTED has been obligated of the total task order amount of $ REDACTED. If approved the new task order value would be $ REDACTED.

Summary | Period of performance

Period of Performance Start Date End Date Total:

Option period one (new work)

Modification award date

01/19/2025 REDACTED

Option period two (new work)

01/20/2025 01/19/2026 REDACTED

Option period three (new work)

01/20/2026 01/19/2027 REDACTED

Option period four (new work)

01/20/2027 01/19/2028 REDACTED

Total: $ REDACTED

4. Identification of the justification rationale for exception to the fair opportunity process. The supporting rationale, including a demonstration that the proposed contractor’s unique qualifications or the nature of the acquisition requires use of the exception cited.

i. FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i)(B) 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.

ii. Nature of the acquisition and proposed unique qualifications of the contractor(s).

MicroHealth was the only contract holder at the time of task order award and currently that can provide a team of technical subject matter expertise that includes a niche set of skills. These unique skills support the mix of legacy and current state technology that makes up the National Patient Information Reporting System (NPIRS) enterprise reporting and analytic architecture.

The contract holder currently provides specialized support to maintain and extend legacy data stores, custom code/procedures, operating systems and interfaces within the complex data ecosystem. In the information technology market, as technology advances, the amount of skilled personnel with the ability to perform on legacy systems is limited. In theory personnel can be trained to operate legacy systems, however this would take additional time as well as finding personnel willing to learn legacy systems which will soon be obsolete. This makes it difficult to find personnel to support these systems. The contract holder is the only contractor who can provide available skilled legacy system personnel.

In addition to being the only contract holder that can support the legacy data reporting environment, the contract holder also has the subject matter expertise for complex environments. The contract holder provides support with mature skillsets for enterprise reporting or business intelligence/analytics environment that enables data discovery, data mining, predictive analysis, and trending of key performance indicators.

These are in support of patient care and patient care management, utilizing state of the art technologies to make data more available to enable Indian Health Services and IHS leadership to make informed decisions.

It is likely if the government attempted to find another contract holder with the compliment of complex legacy architecture expertise, coupled with ability to satisfy new technology requirements, there would be schedule delays to the IHS critical reporting requirements. Additionally, any competitor would likely try to recruit the personnel (both legacy and complex skilled personnel) from this task order. A requirement of this nature would create additional work for all involved to make use of scarce resources.

Current market research indicates subject matter experts on this task order (Sr.

Programmer/Data Analyst, Sr. Application Developer System Administrator and Sr.

Data Analyst, Developer, Quality Assurance Specialist) are difficult to hire and retain. Consequently, to solicit this new work outside of this task order could result in multiple contractors needing access to the same parts of the systems with the IHS having to increase its own efforts by segregating sections of the projects to different contract holder. With the growing need to support additional unanticipated projects and the unique qualifications of the contract holder it is in the best interest of the government to increase the work of this task order.

The current contract holder contact information is:

MicroHealth

VIENNA VA 221822634

8229 BOONE BOULEVARD SUITE 500

5. Determination by the contracting officer that the anticipated cost to the Government will 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. The additional work is being added to the optional work CLINS. Once the work is known the contracting officer will seek a priced technical solution.

Although the work will be firm-fixed-price, the pricing will include a labor break out. The price will be evaluated and compared against the government estimate, historical pricing and similar market prices for similar labor categories.

6. Any other facts supporting the justification.

Support for the Indian Health Service, Office of Public Health Support, Division of Epidemiology and Disease Prevention (OCPS/DEDP) is critical to ensure that there is no interruption of public health service and data provisioning to the TECs Sr. Data Analyst, Developer, Quality Assurance Specialist will result in administrative and legal constraints that will present barriers to timely and comprehensive data access. Additional support will ensure that access to data is not limited or negatively impacted as defined in data sharing agreements outlined in Goal 3, Objective 3.3, Strategy 9 of the Indian Health Service strategic plan.

Director initiatives, ad-hoc requests for data, new program initiatives, GAO, and congressional inquiries continue to be identified and needed through the remaining period of performance under current and future task orders. In addition to continuing critical support for the Division of Epidemiology and Disease Prevention, developing and/or extending support for Opioid Surveillance, HIV and Sexually Transmitted Disease, Immunization and other key activities to ensure the health and safety of the AI/AN community.

The ability to satisfy these requirements require contractor resources to develop various application software development and data analytics projects that provide insights into population health and patient care management information. Some examples of the application development projects that result in business information and business analytics dashboards, tabular reports and/or cohort web applications that optimize and streamline data collection activities when required are instrumental in meeting the agencies enterprise reporting requirements.

As analytics and other enterprise reporting solutions are satisfied, there is also backend architecture work that supports the expanded data capabilities to meet the critical Indian Health Service (IHS) reporting needs. These expansive backend efforts are necessary to either add new data/data domains to the data stores and includes the full software development lifecycle to support the technical analysis, management, design, data analysis and implementation, reporting and governance to maintain the data and structures to support immediate and future reporting requirements.

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.

When required the enterprise National Data Warehouse requires expansion to include additional data elements and/or data domains enable data visualization, self-service and guided analytic solutions from an integrated data store.

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 REDACTED to the total award amount.

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.

This will be an ongoing requirement. It is not anticipated that there will be any future barriers to competition for this work.

8. Program Office 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 Vanessa Weaver, NPIRS

Investment Manager and Data Management and Analytics Division Director (IHS/OIT/DMA)

Vanessa L. Digitally signed by Vanessa L. Weaver -S

Weaver -S Date: 2024.09.09 13:36:54 -04'00'

Program Manager’s Immediate Supervisor

Andrea Scott IHS Deputy Chief Information Officer/Deputy Director

OIT

Andrea Digitally signed by Andrea J.

J. Scott Scott -S Date:

-S 2024.09.10 10:38:44 -04'00'

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.

Contracting Officer Kelly Lael Kelly Lael Digitally signed by Kelly Lael

Date: 2024.09.10 10:48:24 -04'00'

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

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

Chief of the Contracting Office

Brian Goodger NITAAC Director

Brian K.

Goodger -S

Digitally signed by Brian K.

Goodger -S Date: 2024.09.10 13:54:24 -04'00'

Head of the Contracting Activity

Phillip D. Osborne Acting Director, OALM, OD, NIH for Acting Head of the Contracting Activity, NIH

Tiffany D.

C

Chadwick -S D gitally signed by Tiffany D.

adwick -S te: 2024.09.20 17:28:27

4'00'

Competition Advocate or Designated Official

Dr. Kathryn Partin, Deputy Director, Office of Research Integrity

Kathryn M. Partin - S

Digitally signed by Kathryn M.

Partin -S Date: 2024.09.22 20:57:39 -04'00'