NNG15SD27B 36C10B20F0371_1.docx

VA-20-00085169

RightFax New Upgrade VA-20-00085169

Contract Opportunity Award Notice

PRODUCT SERVICE CODE

SUBJECT

CONTRACTING OFFICE'S

ZIP-CODE

SOLICITATION NUMBER

BASE NOTICE TYPE

ARCHIVE

DAYS AFTER THE AWARD DATE

RECOVERY ACT FUNDS

NAICS CODE

SET-ASIDE

CONTRACTING OFFICE

ADDRESS

DESCRIPTION

See Attachment

POINT OF CONTACT

(POC Information Automatically Filled from User Profile Unless Entered)

AWARD NUMBER

AWARD AMOUNT

LINE ITEM NUMBER

AWARD DATE (MM-DD-YYYY)

AWARDEE NAME

CONTRACTOR'S DUNS NUMBER

AWARDEE ADDRESS LINE 1

AWARDEE ADDRESS LINE 2

AWARDEE ADDRESS LINE 3

AWARDEE ADDRESS LINE 4

AWARDEE CITY

AWARDEE STATE

AWARDEE ZIP CODE

AGENCY'S URL

URL DESCRIPTION

AGENCY CONTACT'S EMAIL

ADDRESS

EMAIL DESCRIPTION

AWARD INFORMATION

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

GENERAL INFORMATION

* = Required Field Contract Opportunity Award Notice Community Care (CC) Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) Phase 2, RightFax Licenses and Maintenance Support, New Delivery Order (VA-20-00085169) 07724 36C10B20Q0540 N 541519 Department of Veterans Affairs Technology Acquisition Center 23 Christopher Way Eatontown NJ 07724 Mary Beth Hall Mary Beth Hall Mary.Hall3@va.gov 732-440-9635

NNG15SD27B_36C10B20F0371

$296,793.98 09-15-2020

V3GATE, LLC

808862598

555 MIDDLE CREEK PKWY STE 120

COLORADO SPRINGS

CO

80921

JUSTIFICATION

FOR AN EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY

2. Description of Action: This proposed action is for the award of a firm-fixed-price delivery order (DO) issued under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) V Governmentwide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) for brand name RightFax Enterprise Edition software, incremental technical support and maintenance, and remote installation and configuration services for RightFax.

3. Description of the Supplies or Services: VA, Office of Information and Technology (OIT) has a requirement for brand name RightFax Enterprise Edition software, incremental technical support and maintenance, and remote installation and configuration services which includes RightFax New Upgrade, Premium Support 7/24 technical support and eligibility to receive software upgrades released during active support contract term servier hardware support. This tool is used to analyze the quality of health documents exchanged with VA partners. RightFax, which includes its hosting environment, was granted an Authority to Operate (ATO) by VA. A separate justification shall be processed for the hosting portion of this solution, and is therefore not included in this justification or acquisition. The required support services include maintenance and technical support services, which include 7X24 online technical support as well as maintenance releases, including all upgrades, updates and fixes patches, and software problem diagnosis and resolution. The brand name support and maintenance services required includes the installation of software updates and modification to the VA quality scoring rules. Also included is virtual support with troubleshooting issues and assistance with implementing any fixes deemed necessary. This virtual support includes all level of escalation until the issue(s) are resolved. The period of performance for this proposed action will consist of a 12-month base period and two, 12-month option periods to allow for continued access and support of the software products

4. Statutory Authority: The statutory authority permitting an exception to fair opportunity is Section 41 U.S.C. 4106(c)(2) as implemented by the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Subpart 16.505(b)(2)(i)(B), 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: Based on market research, as described in section 8 of this justification, it was determined that only the brand name RightFax noted above is capable of supporting the requirements of VA.

This effort was originally competed in Fiscal Year 2019 as a brand name or equal requirement for efax services. Brand name RightFax was included as part of the solution proposed by the successful Offeror, and subsequently has been used by VA. This effort is an expansion of an existing and procured contracted service and the use of any other product would require a complete replacement of everything that is currently operational and fully integrated with existing VA systems. VA has a significant investment in the current product and seeks to expand the capability ands licenses available to VA staff to meet increased faxing requirements. Renewal of the proposed software solution is necessary to maintain the existing environment that was specifically built and formatted to operate within the Office of Community Care. The maintenance of the existing system is critical to support the high volume expected in light of business logic changes from opt-in to opt-out and Corona Virus Disease 2019 transactions. Specifically, to provide care for Veterans, VA must send documents to and receive documents from various third-party care providers. The quality of the documents exchanged has a direct result on the cost and quality of Veterans’ care. As such, without the required proprietary brand name RightFax purchase, the existing infrastructure and purchases would be useless. No other source can provide this capability without completely replacing the existing infrastructure and replacing it with an entirely new solution. No other source, other than RightFax or its authorized resellers can provide this requirement without an interruption to service to the Veteran. Furthermore, the required licenses, maintenance, and support services can only be provided by RightFax or its authorized resellers due to the proprietary nature of the product. Specifcally, the required maintenance services will include development of upgrades, fixes and patches to proprietary software. No other source, other than the Original Software developer or its resellers has access to this proprietary code. Patches or changes to the software provided by any other source could render the entire solutions useless. Therefore, these services must by provided by RightFax or its authorized resellers. Failure to renew this effort as proposed will significantly impact the quality of care that VA can provide the Veteran and beneficiaries. Without a mechanism to process faxes electronically, the services required cannot be provided. The clinial care documents contain information about the medical diagnosis, teatments, procedures, test results, medictions, and travel histories of the person receiving the care.

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 RightFax, as well as software maintenance and support. In accordance with FAR 16.505(a)(4)(iii)(A)(1), this justification will be provided with the solicitation to all appropriate NASA SEWP V GWAC holders. Furthermore, in accordance with FAR 5.301, 16.505(b)(2)(ii)(D), and 16.505(a)(4)(iii), the award notice for this action will be synopsized on the System for Award Management (SAM) contract opportunities website and this justification will be made publicly available within 14 days after award.

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

8. Market Research: The Government’s technical experts conducted market research in May and June 2020 by reviewing VA’s options for a major upgrade. VA already has a RightFax contract in place, and VA has been using this software for approximately 15 years. VA evaluated availability of other products and came to the conclusion that an upgrade to the existing RightFax software solution currently implemented is the only solution that meets VA needs. The products evaluated by VA include eFax and eFax corporate, Biscom, Netiva, and Hello Fax and limitations include Server-Based faxing and /or HIPAA compliance. Other products’ solutions are not interoperable with the existing, currently fielded Rightfax infrastructure. To start over with another product would result in there being no compatability with the current system, which would result in starting from scratch with a new product and required support. All software clients installed across Citrix Access Gateway and thousands of machines would have to be uninstalled and a new client added. In addition the server would have to be completely redone and reset up with an estimated time frame for doing both of at least two months with most staff working it and possibly as much as six months to get fully replaced. In addition, while other vendors possess general capabilities needed to provide similar services, no other source was found to meet VA’s needs due to the proprietary source code specific to the maintenance and liaison support for this particular software. Therefore, other software providers do not have access to the proprietary data, source codes, and protocols of the software in order to provide the required software maintenance and technical support for RightFax as well as maintenance and liaison support in order to provide the RightFax software maintenance, updates, and virtual technical support services. Since the software is proprietary, a legal restriction is placed on access to the software code and without this access it is not possible to modify (upgrade) the software code

Based on all of these market research efforts, the Government’s technical experts have determined that only brand name RightFax Enterprise Edition software, incremental technical support and maintenance, and remote installation and configuration services can meet all of VA’s needs.

9. Other Facts: None.