Notice of intent to Sole Source - RoR.pdf

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES

Indian Health Service Division of Acquisition Policy 5600 Fishers Lane

Rockville, MD 20857

NOTICE OF INTENT TO SOLE SOURCE AWARD

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Indian Health Service (IHS), Division of Acquisition Policy (DAP), on behalf of the IHS Office of Clinical and Preventative

Services, intends to award a Contract on a sole source basis to Reach Out and Read, INC., Boston MA for the over 550,000 American Indian/Alaska Native children for the early child literacy program at federal and tribal hospitals/clinics, including urban Indian programs in 41 metropolitan centers.

The anticipated period of performance will be for a one year base period only.

This sole source action will be issued under the authority of the Simplified Procedures for

Certain Commercial Items. The statutory authority permitting sole source acquisition is

41U.S.C 1901 as implemented by Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 13.501(a)(1)(ii).

Market research has identified Reach Out and Read, Inc.as the only vendor capable of providing the required support services for IHS.

Reach Out and Read (RoR) is the only incumbent that incorporates books into pediatric care (known as the IHS Child Literacy Program) to encourage families to read to together. IHS has a long-standing history with RoR in recruiting and maintaining more than 220 active I/T/U RoR sites that served more than 58,000 children through well-child clinics. IHS has partnered with RoR as a sole source due to the fidelity of the national literacy program and resources, as the books have Native American themes and/or written in Native languages to promote early literacy skills.

RoR has an extensive work experience in training pediatricians, nurse practitioners, and public health nurses to implement the early child literacy program and ability to evaluate the intervention. After conducting extensive research online, RoR is the only organization that can provide evidence and clinic-based child literacy program with the current knowledge of the program.

The Child Literacy Program is not able to have a lapse in coverage of services. RoR would be able to continue moving forward with the background knowledge they already have. This would enable the

Children Literacy Program to progress and complete the IHS mission and goals.

Awarding this contract to a different vendor would result in duplication of cost to the Government from a new vendor learning the background and basically starting the Child Literacy Program from the beginning. RoR has already completed this work and shown decades of success. If this contract was awarded to a different vendor, the delay would affect the program significantly.

IHS has been made aware of Privacy Issues that IHS and RoR are addressing to meet the requirements of “Federal-compatible Terms of Service (TOS) agreements, which are special agreements negotiated between the federal government and many vendors who offer social media, mobile, business and other digital tools. These TOS agreements modify or remove problematic clauses in standard TOS

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES

Indian Health Service Division of Acquisition Policy 5600 Fishers Lane

Rockville, MD 20857 agreements, and allow federal employees to legally use these tools.” To comply, the IHS would need to establish a Third-Party Website Application (TPWA) Privacy Impact Assessment through our

Privacy Officer for any web pages or websites outside of the governmental approved links (i.e., using the service portal with online orders) and is working with RoR on this matter. Section 208 of the E-

Government Act of 2002 requires all Federal government agencies to conduct Privacy Impact

Assessments (PIA) for all new or substantially changed technology that collects, maintains or disseminates personally identifiable information. There are other protection of PHI and Tax ID numbers that are being resolved between HIS and RoR to meet federal guidelines. These new Privacy

Issues would all have to start over again with any new vendor, potentially causing wasted federal funding. Last year's contract was considered sole source for the same reasons, and nothing has changed to support any other strategy.

It is anticipated that the Government will award a Firm Fixed-Price (FFP) contract for this requirement. The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code is 624410

Child Care Services with business size standard of $9.5M. The Product and Service Code

(PSC) is U099 – Education/Training – Other.

Points of contact for this acquisition is Contracting Officer, Natalie Phillips at

Natalie.Phillips@IHS.Gov.

This notice of intent is not a request for competitive quotes. Interested persons may identify their interest and capability to respond to the requirement to Contracting Officer.

Information received in response to this notice will be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether to conduct a competitive procurement. Any response to this notice must show clear and convincing evidence that competition would be advantageous to the

Government. In doing so, interested sources must submit technical capabilities, and other information that demonstrates their ability to meet the Government's needs.

At this time, no solicitation document is available and telephone requests will not be honored.

No contract will be awarded on the basis of quotes received in response to this notice. If no affirmative written responses are received by 08/25/2024 at 5 p.m. Eastern Standard Time

(EST) a contract may be awarded to Reach Out and Read. INC.

ATTACHMENT #A – Statement of Work