P01 - SOW_Joanna Briggs Institute Subscription FY26.docx

Statement of Work Department of Veterans Affairs Veterans Health Administration

Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) Evidence Based Practice (EBP) Subscription

January 2026

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Veterans Health Administration (VHA) requires an existing, commercial, off-the-shelf, web-based electronic subscription to the Joanna Briggs Institute Evidence (JBI) Based Practice (EBP) Database that will be made available throughout the VHA healthcare system.

2.0 Background:

The JBI EBP database is a comprehensive database covering a wide range of medical, nursing, and health science specialties and includes a unique suite of information that has been analyzed, appraised, and prepared by expert reviewers at JBI. Coverage includes a wide range of medical, nursing, and health science specialties with resources such as: Evidence Summaries, Evidence–Based Recommended Practices, Best Practice Information Sheets, Systematic Reviews, Consumer Information Sheets, Systematic Review Protocols, and Technical Reports.

VHA’s goal is to ensure uniform availability of high quality, medical, nursing, and health science specialties knowledge-based resources across the VHA system to improve clinical decision making.

3.0 Objectives:

The desired goals of the nationwide provision of a commercial medical, nursing, and health science specialties knowledge-based resource are as follows:

a. Providing access nationwide to standard knowledge-based clinical and nursing healthcare information resources will build on the enterprise wide availability of knowledge-based resources in the National Core Collection of Online Resources available to all VA staff.

b. Improving clinical decision making at the point of care by insuring a uniform availability to a subscription based collection of high quality, clinical information.

c. Initiating a nationwide, centralized purchase to capitalize on the economies of scale offered by vendors.

d. Negotiating one license/contract to decrease the current contracting and reviewing efforts that are required at the facility and/or VISN level and thereby avoid the costs and workload associated with multiple procurements.

4.0 Scope of Work:

a. The contractor shall provide all sites on the VHA network with access to a single online, web-based subscription to the JBI EBP database. Authentication shall be through IP address validation on an enterprise basis, eliminating the need for users to enter identification, username and/or password.

b. The contractor shall provide an unrestricted number of simultaneous with immediate access from any web-enabled computer within VHA. It is required that all authorized remote users with VPN access have access to the product.

c. The contractor shall provide Athens authentication for remote users across the 153 VHA medical centers which provide remote access through Athens authentication service.

d. The contractor shall assure the requirements listed in paragraphs 6, Information Scope, 7, Information Quality, 8, Usability, and 9, Access, Content, Support, are addressed.

5.0 Performance Period: One (1) year from date of award plus four (4) one-year options to be exercised at the Government’s discretion.

6.0 Information Scope: The contractor shall assure the product includes:

a. Knowledge-based information covering evidence-based medical and nursing healthcare.

b. Information that reflects current practice issues and supports clinical decision making.

c. Comprehensive information in a single product available for stand-alone purchase or license, independent of complementary or companion products offered by the vendor.

d. Related patient education material.

7.0 Information Quality: The contractor shall assure:

a. Information is accurate, authoritative, and relevant.

b. Authors and sources are well recognized subject experts in their fields.

c. “Best practice,” evidence-based information, or treatment practice guideline information is included.

d. Policies for determining validity and standards for inclusion of material are well described.

8.0 Usability: The contractor shall assure:

a. Navigation within the system is logical and is easy to use.

b. The product has “user friendly” help and direction aids.

9.0 Access, Content, Support: The contractor shall assure:

a. Product is 508 compliant (http://www.section508.gov/). If product is not 508 compliant, the contractor shall describe measures being taken to bring product into compliance and date, within 12 months of contract award, that product will be 508 compliant. Or, if product is not 508 compliant, the contractor shall describe why no work is being done to make it 508 compliant.

b. The product is compatible with Internet Explorer and with most other standard web browsers, which have cookies enabled. To insure privacy, the product uses session cookies rather than persistent cookies.

c. The product is compatible with the Windows environment.

d. All site content and support of the web site is the responsibility of the contractor. This includes tech support to VHA users nationwide.

e. The system is accessible 24 hours per day, 7 days a week.

f. System downtime is minimal and VA project manager is notified when such occurs.

g. Information is easily printed.

h. The system provides the ability to create personal accounts.

i. All pictures and graphics is can be freely used for educational purposes.

j. A single point of contact for customer service issues is assigned to VA.

k. Questions are responded to within two (2) business days.

l. Usage statistics are available to the system administrator on an enterprise level.

m. The product is accessible via a variety of personal mobile devices including Apple and Android devices.

n. Graphics, pictures, and/or images that are searchable are highly desirable.

o. Usage statistics at an IP level are available.

p. The ability for authorized users to share provided content including clinical reference library content with other authorized VA users, including emailing among VA colleagues.