P01 - SOW_Sanford Guide.docx

Statement of Work Department of Veterans Affairs Veterans Health Administration

Sanford Guide Web Edition Subscription January 2026

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Veterans Health Administration (VHA) requires access to the Sanford Guide WEB EDITION via the internet. The VHA Infectious Diseases Program Office has identified this resource as the authoritative, up-to-date, and relevant resource to ensure infection control information is made available to staff for patient care.

2.0 Background:

With bioterrorism, avian flu, COVID-19, and drug-resistant infections in the news, prescribers and pharmacists need a guide to antimicrobial therapy more than ever. Sanford Guide is one of the most frequently used and widely relied upon references in medicine. New material found in this web edition includes updated recommendations for management of community-associated MRSA, treatment options for highly resistant bacteria, and current regimens for antiretroviral therapy. All the tables have been updated to reflect newly approved drugs, new indications for existing drugs and updated dosage, side effects and pharmacologic data.

Considering the ongoing challenge to quickly formulate and implement effective, comprehensive treatment plans for patients with infections, providers in the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) need a variety of readily available resources. The VHA continues to work to enhance its ability to fight the war on infections and be a leader in health care in providing resources to its providers to do so.

One resource that is needed is the internationally recognized Sanford Guide. Sanford Guide has provided up-to-date guidelines and recommendations for the treatment of infectious diseases for more than 50 years. It is the recognized “gold standard” reference in its field providing convenient, comprehensive recommendations for treatment and prevention of bacterial, fungal, viral, parasitic and mycobacterial infections, surgical prophylaxis, and ancillary information covering pharmacology, adverse effects, drug-drug interactions and dose adjustments. The Sanford Guide Web Edition is proposed for use in the VHA so that it can be readily available to providers at the point of care from any computer. The online guide extends the scope of coverage over the text guide version to bring new functionality to the material such as links to PubMed abstracts and other resources in a highly searchable environment.

3.0 Scope of Work:

The contractor shall provide the Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Health Administration internet access to the Sanford Guide WEB EDITION via a site license. The contractor shall assure the requirements in paragraphs 5 – 8 below are met. This contract is for a subscription to the Sanford Guide WEB EDITION and the title does not pass to the government as we are purchasing a site license.

4.0 Performance Period:

One (1) year from date of award, plus four (4), one (1) year options, to be exercised at the discretion of the Government.

5.0 Information Quality

· Information shall be accurate, authoritative, and relevant.

· Authors and sources shall be well recognized subject experts in their fields.

· Topics shall be presented succinctly, but with adequate detail to be useful to clinicians.

· “Best practice” or evidence-based information shall be included in recommendations for diagnosis or therapy.

· Policies for determining validity and standards for inclusion of material shall be well described.

· Guidelines and summaries shall include references or sources.

· When necessary to the topic, images, tables and diagrams shall be available and clearly shown.

6.0 Usability

· Navigation within the system shall be logical and easy to use. There shall be fast access to topics and subtopics. Topic linking or indexing shall retrieve material of high relevance quickly.

· The product shall have “user friendly” help and direction aids.

7.0 Currency

· The date a topic was last reviewed for content shall be stated and easily found.

8.0 Access, Content, Support

· Product shall be 508 compliant (http://www.section508.gov/). If product is not 508 compliant, vendor 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, vendor shall describe why no work is being done to make it 508 compliant.

· An unrestricted number of simultaneous users shall have immediate access from any computer throughout VHA that has internet access. All authorized remote users with VPN shall have access to the product. A username and/or password option shall be offered for remote users if needed.

· The product shall be compatible with Internet Explorer so long as it continues to be supported by its developer (Microsoft) and common modern web browsers, which have cookies enabled. To ensure privacy, the product shall use session cookies rather than persistent cookies.

· The product shall be compatible with the Windows environment via web browser.

· The contractor shall provide all site content and technical support of the web site to VA users nationwide.

· System downtime shall be minimal and VA project manager shall be notified when such downtime occurs.

· Topics shall be easily printed.

· The contractor shall permit free use for educational purposes of all pictures and graphics.

· The contractor shall assign a single point of contact for customer service issues.

· The contractor shall respond to questions within one business day.

· The contractor shall make enterprise and IP level usage statistics available to the system administrator.

· Graphics, pictures, and/or images shall be searchable.

· The contractor shall offer training sessions (internet-based or live) for VHA staff on an as requested basis. Specialized training sessions shall be provided for VA library staff if requested. 1-hour internet-based trainings shall be available at a cost of $200/session, and 1-hour live training sessions shall be available at a cost of $3,500/session.

· The contractor shall permit topics to be emailed among VHA colleagues.

Additional Information

Copyright and Trademark. The Work is owned by Owner and protected under the copyright and trademark laws of the United States of America and international conventions; all rights under those laws and conventions, including, without limitation, reproduction, derivative works, distribution and display, are reserved by the Owner. “Sanford Guide” and the Chinese character logo “Hot Disease” are registered trademarks of Owner.

Disclaimer and Limitation of Liability. Every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of the content of the Work. However, current full prescribing information available in the package insert for each drug should be consulted before prescribing any product. Owner is not responsible for errors or omissions or for any consequences from application of the information in the Work and makes no warranty, express or implied, with respect to the currency, accuracy, or completeness of the contents of the Work. Application of the information contained in the Work in a particular situation remains the professional responsibility of the practitioner.

Owner shall provide continuous access to the Work during the Subscription Period. However, Owner and Subscriber Institution mutually acknowledge that data entry, communication and storage are subject to human and machine errors, omissions, delays, down time, and losses, including inadvertent loss of data or damage to media, which may give rise to loss or damage or which may prevent access to the Database. Neither party undertakes or accepts any liability whatsoever to the other or to third parties for errors, omissions, delays, interruptions, or losses, unless caused by that party’s willful misconduct. In the event access is interrupted, Owner may elect to extend the Subscription Period to cover the period of interruption. This shall be the sole remedy for interrupted access.

Monitored Use. Owner/Publisher may monitor Subscriber Institution’s use of the Work and may use for its own internal business purposes any information collected from use of the Work by persons authorized by Subscriber Institution to access the Work.