Pyxis JA - Final Redacted.pdf

Control Number VA-23-00043916

SIMPLIFIED ACQUSITION PROCEDURES JUSTIFICATION FOR A SOLE SOURCE

AWARD FOR CERTAIN COMMERCIAL ITEMS

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: The proposed action is for a firm-fixed price (FFP) effort for the procurement of brand name Becton Dickson (BD) Pyxis MedStation ES-323 Automated Medication Dispensing Cabinets (AMDC), Q-6 Drawer, Pyxis ES 5 cubic ft Refrigerator, Medical Label Module, and Pyxis Anesthesia System (PAS).

3. Description of Supplies or Services: The VA, Simulation Learning, Evaluation, Assessment, and Research Network (SimLEARN) National Simulation, Validation, Evaluation Testing (SimVET) Center (NSC), requires the procurement of a BD Pyxis MedStation ES-323 AMDC, Q-6 Drawer, Pyxis ES 5 cubic ft Refrigerator, and Med Label Module as well as the procurement of Cerner/BD Care Coordination Engine (CCE) virtual interface servers to interface PAS to the Oracle/Cerner Millennium Electronic Patient Record and BD Pyxis AMDC HL7 Logical Link interface to the Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA), where applicable, and to the Veterans Health Information Systems which will address both the viability of this system to run on VA Information Technology (IT) systems as well as the impacts on clinical workflow with the full utilization of this new technology. AMDCs have improved greatly over the past 10 years and are critical to the delivery of both inpatient and outpatient care. Most importantly, these cabinets are capable of biomedical device integration; a process where a medical device automatically documents clinical data, such as vital signs or medications given, in the current state (VistA/Computerized Patient Record System (CPRS)) and desired state (Oracle/Cerner Millennium) simulated electronic health records (EHR). Thus, allowing healthcare personnel to focus on simulated clinical care instead of looking at a screen or typing on a keyboard.

Incorporating these automated medication dispensing cabinets into the simulated Emergency Department, simulated Operating Room, and Intensive Care simulation areas will greatly increase the fidelity of our simulations and enable SimVET to provide realistic and meaningful simulations for systems testing, workflow optimization, or training. The current version of the Pyxis hardware solution at NSC is outdated and at the end of life. VA’s existing BD Pyxis brand name software and hardware inventory includes 9,233 devices deployed in 44 percent of VA medical centers, not including Community-Based Outpatient Clinics across the Enterprise. All of the SimLEARN NSC’s networked BD Pyxis AMDCs and PAS need to be replaced, installed, and configured to the NSC’s simulated EHR (E.g., PAS with Oracle/Cerner Millennium and BD Pyxis AMDC with VistA).

The proposed action is to provide setup, installation of the hardware and subsequent software, and interface servers on the user system and user business process training to support the replacement of the NSC’s existing BD Pyxis AMDC with the PAS to the

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 additional sources that can meet the Government’s requirements. Additionally, the proposed action will be synopsized on the Contracting Opportunities Page in accordance with FAR 5.201. Any proposals that are received shall be evaluated.

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

8. Market Research: VA technical experts conducted web-based market research in April 2023 to determine if competition was viable for this action. Specifically, the VA technical experts reviewed similar software providers from alternative vendors such as Omnicell. The VA technical experts determined that the Omnicell products do meet VA’s functional requirements but both BD Pyxis and Omnicell AMDCs are required at the SimLEARN National SimVET Center to provide adequate representation and testing environments reflective of what is currently in use at the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) today, to ensure the standardization of AMDC clinical workflows to VHA’s current and desired state EHRs. No other products will suffice or are in use at VHA, as VHA solely focuses on the need to mirror its BD Pyxis AMDC and PAS capabilities.

Additionally, VA networking Subject Matter Experts regularly review industry trade publications and conduct internet research to ascertain if any other brand name hardware and software is available. Based on all of these market research efforts, the Government’s technical experts have determined that only BD Pyxis brand name hardware and software can meet all of VA’s needs for this proprietary effort.

VA issued a Request for Information (RFI) on the Contract Opportunities page in July 2023 to determine the availability of vendors that can provide the brand name BD Pyxis products. The RFI included the draft BD Pyxis MedStation ES-323 AMDC and PAS Performance Work Statement (PWS), a list of technical requirements, and requested industry to provide company information.

The RFI was posted on July 28, 2023, via the Contracting Opportunities page and closed with one response. The Government technical experts thoroughly reviewed the response to determine the vendors’ abilities to meeting the PWS requirements.

Response was received from: Four Points Technology, LLC (Four Points) (Service- Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB)). Four Points was found capable of meeting the Governments requirements. The Contracting Office communicated with BD directly to determine if there were any other resellers capable of meeting the requirements. BD sent the VA an authorized letter confirming three authorized SDVOSB resellers. The three vendors are: Four Points, Microtech, and Veterans Healthcare Supply Solutions. The results of the RFI provided adequate reason to believe there would be sufficient competition amongst SDVOSBs. As such, this effort shall be solicited as a SDVOSB set-aside on Contracting Opportunities.

9. Other Facts: N/A.