P03 - JA Laurel Bridge Compass Routers Final Redacted.pdf

JUSTIFICATION AND APPROVAL

FOR AN EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY

1. Contracting Activity: Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)

Office of Procurement, Acquisition, and Logistics Technology Acquisition Center

23 Christopher Way Eatontown, NJ 07724

2. Description of Action: This proposed action is for the award of a firm-fixed-price delivery order issued under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) V Government-wide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) for brand name Laurel Bridge Compass router software maintenance and support. The proposed action would also provide maintenance and support for brand name Laurel Bridge PowerTools Suite software and Lighthouse Central Monitoring software; seven new instances of Lighthouse Central Monitoring software, with perpetual licenses, would be provided.

3. Description of Supplies or Services: The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Veterans Health Administration (VHA), Veterans Integrated Services Network (VISN) 10 requires maintenance and support services for existing instances of VA owned brand name Laurel Bridge Compass software to provide interoperability with the appropriate patient identifiers between Cerner Electronic Health Record (EHR), Philips Picture Archiving and Communication System and existing Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA) Imaging systems and modalities for various VA sites. VHA VISN 10 is comprised of 10 medical centers, the independent Columbus, Ohio Ambulatory Care clinic, and a network of 63 Community Based Outpatient Clinics. VHA VISN 10 already has 34 instances of Compass software active at all 11 sites. VHA VISN 10 requires annual maintenance and support for all existing instances of Compass software (both production and test Compass instances) currently in operation.

VHA VISN 10 requires maintenance and support for all existing instances of Brand Name Laurel Bridge PowerTools Suite software; VHA VISN 10 currently owns 12 instances of PowerTools Suite. VHA VISN 10 requires maintenance and support for 4 existing instances of brand Name Laurel Bridge Lighthouse Central Monitoring software. Seven new instances of Lighthouse Central Monitoring, with perpetual licenses, are also required.

VHA requires 200 professional service hours to be utilized at the discretion of VHA for purposes including but not limited to training and education, general consulting on Compass software administration, and support with new implementations and builds for any VHA VISN 10 site.

The period of performance shall be one (1) 12-month base period with three (3) 12-month option periods. The total estimated value of the proposed action is

Laurel Bridge Compass Routers Control Number: VA-24-00085769

4. Statutory Authority: Pursuant to Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 16.505(a)(4), the following brand name requirement is being justified and approved as an exception to fair opportunity under the statutory authority of Section 41 U.S.C.

capable of providing the supplies or services required at the level of quality required because the supplies o

5. Rationale Supporting Use of Authority Cited Above:

Brand name Laurel Bridge Compass software is already implemented and operational at all sites in VHA VISN 10. Service and maintenance of the brand name Laurel Bridge Compass software can only be provided by technical personnel from Laurel Bridge.

Based on market research described in section 8 of this justification, it was determined that limited competition is available among resellers for the required brand name Laurel Bridge products and services. VHA VISN 10 is moving from the legacy VistA EHR and moving to an Enterprise Oracle Cerner EHR. On June 5, 2017, VA announced its decision to replace the current EHR system (VistA) with Oracle an existing commercial solution to achieve interoperability within VA, with DoD, and with community care providers. The Office of Electronic Health Record Modernization (OEHRM) oversees the EHR Modernization initiative, which is a crucial piece of a larger effort to transform the way VA delivers health care. This move will require legacy systems to have their existing medical and laboratory devices interfaced and configured to communicate with Oracle Cerner. With this transition, compass routers are required to translate Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) and Health Level 7 (HL7) streams. Oracle Cerner and OEHRM developed and approved VA interface for the Laurel Bridge Compass Router. Currently, Laurel Bridge is the only brand name DICOM router that has an existing interface between VA and Cerner and thus is the only one compatible.

Additionally, Laurel Bridge Compass is the DICOM routing software that is currently implemented at all VHA VISN 10 locations. Laurel Bridge Compass is the only DICOM routing software that is compatible with the existing Oracle Cerner EHRM environment and existing VHA VISN 10 server infrastructure. Therefore, if any other DICOM routing software was procured, it would require VHA VISN 10 to provide and procure all new servers. It would also require VHA VISN 10 to fund and develop a new interface with Oracle Cerner; this would cost approximately dollars and would take approximately two (2) years to complete. Additionally, if any other DICOM routing software is procured, VHA VISN 10 would need to spend time and money in order to configure, test, and implement the new DICOM routers while concurrently maintaining existing Compass DICOM routers.

In addition to the estimated costs and time delays VHA VISN 10 estimates the cost to research, procure, install, configure, implement and test a different brand of DICOM Router would cost approximately this in addition to the costs required to fund a new Oracle Cerner interface and would take an estimate of one

(1) and a half years. This would be in addition to the time required to develop new Oracle Cerner interface. The financial costs and time associated with procuring a different DICOM routing software, would be an unacceptable barrier to the EHRM effort. Therefore, no other brand requirements other than Laurel Bridge Compass.

Only Laurel Bridge can provide the required maintenance and support services for their brand name software packages, including Compass, PowerTools Suite, and Lighthouse Central Monitoring. No other manufacturers or vendors have access to their proprietary software or code, which is required for being able to properly support the softwares.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted, details of which are in the market research section of this document. This effort did not yield any was determined that limited competition is viable among authorized resellers for these brand name items. In accordance with 16.505(a)(4)(iii)(A)(1), this justification will be provided with the solicitation to all appropriate NASA SEWP V GWAC holders.

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: VA technical personnel conducted market research from

November 2023 through May 2024, by conducting online research of other DICOM routers, including Ultrarad, ImageGrid, and RamSoft. As a result of the market research, the technical experts confirmed that although the other companies' products provide similar capabilities, no other product will support VA's existing interoperability and compatibility requirements. The Laurel Bridge Compass software is currently approved by the Office of Information and Technology (OI&T) and EHRM IO and are standardized throughout VISN 10 to perform conversion of patient identification information in DICOM and HL-7 data streams from imaging modalities.

The Laurel Bridge Compass DICOM routers are currently the only DICOM routers that have an approved interface with the Cerner EHR for use within the VA.

Additional market research was conducted by utilizing the NASA SEWP V GWAC Provider Lookup tool that identified Laurel Bridge Compass Router products that are available from multiple SEWP vendors and multiple commercial re-sellers.

Specifically, it was found that there are three (3) Service-Disabled Veteran owned small-business (SDVOSB) authorized resellers of Laurel Bridge Software products and registered and verified in the Small Business Administrations (SBA) Certification

VetCert database; therefore, limited competition is expected among SDVOSBs for this proposed action. Furthermore, market research was conducted on the VetCert database which found that two or more SBA VetCert verified vendors are capable of

Classification System code 541519.

9. Other Facts: None.

10. Technical and Requirements Certification: I certify that the supporting data under my cognizance, which are included in this justification, are accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

11. Fair and Reasonable Cost Determination: I hereby determine that the anticipated price to the Government for this contract action will be fair and reasonable based upon anticipated competition among NASA SEWP V GWAC holders who are resellers of the required brand name Laurel Bridge Compass router software licenses, maintenance and support. Additionally, NASA SEWP has already determined that the catalog prices on its contracts are fair and reasonable. Finally, price analysis will be performed by comparing the successful quote to the Independent Government Cost Estimate.

12. Procuring Contracting Officer Certification: I certify that this justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Approval

In my role as procuring activity Advocate for Competition, based on the foregoing justification, I hereby approve the acquisition of brand name Laurel Bridge Compass router software licenses, maintenance and support on an other than fair opportunity basis pursuant to the authority cited in Section 4 above, subject to availability of funds, and provided that the property and services herein described have otherwise been authorized for acquisition.