REDACTED_JA_23SPI-C04_Adaptive Learning Services - FINAL 4.11.23.pdf

Control Number VA-23-00052174

JUSTIFICATION FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION

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 sole source action is for a firm-fixed price contract with Knowledge Factor, Inc., 4775 Walnut Street, Suite 210, Boulder, Colorado 80301 for the annual procurement of 12,500 learner licenses and five (5) Author Licenses for the Amplifire adaptive e-learning software platform. This effort includes annual online-only author training courses and technical support.

3. Description of Supplies or Services: The Amplifire licenses were acquired as a pilot to evaluate if the product could satisfy the Institute for Learning, Education, and Development’s (ILEAD) requirement. The pilot program was successfully initiated at the VA Salt Lake City Health Care System. This was successfully implemented at seven other Health Care Systems within Veterans Integrated Services Network (VISN) 19.

Additionally, analysis tools included in the software package also allow us to be more certain that builds will succeed, saving time and material costs. As such, ILEAD has decided it is best to continue using the Amplifire product to continue satisfying the requirement.

Amplifire is a commercially available product that provides a comprehensive software e-learning platform that integrates neurobiology and cognitive psychology with multidimensional big-data analytics to deliver learning outcomes and improve patient care. This service is web-based and has the ability to develop and deliver healthcare alliance courses and related testing, assessment, and validation. The platform provides comprehensive data collection, storage and reporting capabilities to assist managers and leadership in strategic planning and resource management to improve clinical outcomes. Benefits to the agency are improved clinical outcomes through professional education; courses utilized in place of existing competency assessments to eliminate duplicate work; administers both initial and ongoing education to assure information retention and confidence of staff and the ability to integrate with the Talent Management System (TMS).

The period of performance of the proposed action is a 12-month base period with three

(3) 12-month option periods. The total estimated value of the proposed action is $xxx,xxx.xx, inclusive of the option periods.

4. Statutory Authority: The statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition is 41 U.S.C. 3304(a)(1) as implemented by the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 6.302-1 entitled, “Only One Responsible Source and No Other Supplies or Services Will Satisfy Agency Requirements.”

Adaptive Learning Services Control Number VA-23-00052174

5. Rationale Supporting Use of Authority Cited Above: In FY22, ILEAD had a new mission to support Human Capital Management (HCM) Initiative 3.1.6: Leverage Mind Booster technology to help learners retain more of what they learn. To support the initiative, ILEAD determined that an adaptive learning software was needed. As such, in Fiscal Year 22, the Amplifire licenses were purchased from Knowledge Factor, Inc. via Contract 36C77622P0046.

Amplifire software is a unique educational platform because it is the first scalable tool that corrects learners’ misinformation, uncertainty and struggle which ultimately leads to costly errors and poor performance. The active learning platform is grounded in neurobiology and cognitive research, where a Science Board and lead researchers from around the country, apply evidence-based research and results to practical learning for knowledge absorption, retention and improved outcomes. Amplifire has pre-built courses with the ability to have content reviewed by subject matter experts. Knowledge Factor Inc. has built in analytics software to deliver results to various levels of staff leadership, supervisors, educators, etc. These results display trends and opportunities for additional hands-on education to specific units and/or disciplines, as well as the opportunity to identify a performance improvement project within the hospital. The software is also able to display improved learning of staff over time and delivers a solution based on its patented algorithms, built from insights in the brain sciences, rapidly detect and correct the knowledge gaps, cognitive biases and confidently held misinformation in the clinical workforce that leads directly to adverse incidents and patient harm. The platform intelligently adapts to this previously invisible knowledge variation and struggle to learn among clinicians until each achieves mastery. The platform reports on workforce proficiency in an easily understood graphical format.

These particular dashboards and analytics capabilities are powerful for leadership and education staff to make pivotal decisions and changes within the organization, beyond other standard education reporting software. The Amplifire adaptive e-learning software platform is proprietary to Knowledge Factor, Inc.

Because Amplifire is cloud-based, it needed to be Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) certified. To comply, Knowledge Factor, Inc.

certified Amplifier and it is now the only adaptive e-learning platform that is FedRAMP approved and available through the FedRAMP Marketplace. After obtaining certification, each agency is then required to conduct its own authority to operate (ATO) before assuming the risk of using the product. VA has also already accomplished this for Amplifire. Due to this FedRAMP requirement, all other vendors seeking to compete against Knowledge Factor, Inc. must be FedRAMP certified.

Amplifire is also the only adaptive e-Learning platform that has been tested and validated against existing ILEAD VHA systems, to include:

a. ILEAD Learning product design and development processes

b. Certification of Section 508 accessibility standards

c. Implementation through the TMS

d. Data acquisition processes to support ongoing evaluation and reporting

Currently, there are no vendors or products commercially available that can satisfy ILEAD’s current mission to support HCM Initiative 3.1.6: Leverage Mind Booster technology. Waiting for other vendors to develop a similar commercially available product/service that accomplishes these processes, in an attempt to yield competition, would substantially delay ILEAD’s mission and potentially lead to mission failure.

Selecting a different vendor, if one were available, would mean VA would lose the past 15 months work and would have to begin integrating with new software again. Training on the new software would be needed as would time to come up to speed. It is nearly impossible to estimate the cost of another vendor’s commercially available product/service as none currently exists in the marketplace. In addition, if another vendor’s product/service were commercially available, it could take up to 18 months to obtain FedRAMP certification and then an ATO must be conducted which adds time to the deploy of the software and utilizes Government resources to obtain.

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. There is no competition anticipated for this acquisition. In accordance with FAR 5.201, the proposed action was synopsized on Contract Opportunities from March 7, 2023 to March 16, 2023. No responses were received.

7. Actions to Increase Competition: ILEAD will continue to assess market conditions to ensure all feasible vendors are afforded an equal opportunity to provide their adaptive learning tool.

8. Market Research: The market research report and award decision document for the previous acquisition were both finalized within the last 12 months. As such, information in these documents were reviewed to determine the state of the marketplace. The award decision document stated that three vendors were solicited: Knowledge Factor, Inc., Pearson North America and Aleks. However, only Knowledge Factor, Inc.

responded. As such, the contract was awarded to Knowledge Factor, Inc. and they provided Amplifire as the solution.

Additional market research was conducted between December 7, 2022 and December 12, 2022 in the form of Request for Information (RFI) 1599148 that was posted on the General Services Administration eBuy website to find vendors that may be able to provide a product similar to Amplifire. There was one response to the RFI from Software Information Resources Corp. (SIRC) which provided an estimate for the Amplifire product. Via a follow up email to their RFI response, SIRC was asked to confirm that they are an authorized reseller, to which no response was received. On January 4, 2023 Knowledge Factor, Inc. sent an email to the Government’s Subject Matter Expert stating that they do not use resellers to sell Amplifire. Additional market research conducted by the Government of current VA licensed products through VA Technical Reference Model and VA Enterprise Cloud Solutions did not yield any comparable products for the particular scope and capabilities that Amplifire provides.

As stated above, the proposed action was synopsized on Contract Opportunities from March 7, 2023 to March 16, 2023. No responses were received. A RFI was also posted to Contract Opportunities on April 3, 2023 closing on April 10, 2023. No responses were received. Based on the market research, the Government’s technical experts have determined that only Knowledge Factor, Inc.’s Amplifire product can meet all of the Government’s requirements.

9. Other Facts: None