RFI for MEDICS_FINAL.pdf

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI)

Medical Investigation Catalog System

1.0 Description

1.1 The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Office of Research and Engineering (RE) is seeking information on how an interested party could provide software solutions to replace its existing Medical Investigation Catalog System (MEDICS) with a commercial off-the-shelf product. Specifically, NTSB RE is interested in finding a product that can meet its needs with only limited customizations. The agency also will need to migrate all the data and files from its legacy system to the new system.

1.2 THIS IS A REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI) ONLY. This RFI is issued solely for information and planning purposes – it does not constitute a Request for Proposal (RFP) or a promise to issue an RFP in the future. This request for information does not commit the Government to contract for any supply or service whatsoever. Further, the NTSB is not at this time seeking proposals and will not accept unsolicited proposals.

Responders are advised that the U.S. Government will not pay for any information or administrative costs incurred in response to this RFI; all costs associated with responding to this RFI will be solely at the interested party’s expense. Not responding to this RFI does not preclude participation in any future RFP, if any is issued. If a solicitation is released, it will be synopsized on System for Award Management (www.sam.gov) webpage. It is the responsibility of the potential offerors to monitor this site for additional information pertaining to this requirement.

BACKGROUND:

The NTSB is a “public health authority” for purposes of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA). In support of the agency’s public safety mandate, the NTSB Office of Research and Engineering (RE) medical officers routinely review medical records, autopsy and toxicology reports, and other medical information. NTSB investigators and medical officers have a need for a Medical Investigation Catalog System (MEDICS) to securely transfer and store medical documents, share information, provide case management functions, and support the medical investigation workflow.

MEDICS will support over 100 users and will have connections to other NTSB Information Systems.

1.3 NTSB is conducting market research through this RFI to capture information from the vendor community on the marketplace of potential solutions. This RFI seeks input regarding:

a. Industry’s general comments on the NTSB’s business needs and possible solutions including proposals of alternate methods of meeting business needs;

b. Industry’s capability to perform the work (including perceived risks and level of customization required);

http://www.sam.gov/

c. Industry’s estimate of the approximate cost to acquire and implement the proposed solution;

d. Industry’s ability to demonstrate a proposed solution that will at a mininum 90% of requirements could be implemented on a Low Code/ No Code Platform as a Service (PaaS) or Software as a Service (SaaS) with nominal software development needs.

e. Industry’s ability to propose innovative strategies for meeting NTSB’s needs, including multi-vendor collaborative solutions, solutions that leverage open source tools, and enhancements that will bring value.

The desired outcomes of this RFI are for NTSB to:

a. Learn more about what needs can and cannot be met with existing market offerings;

b. Determine the approximate cost of acquiring, implementing, and maintaining the solution(s);

c. Learn about the technology and staff resources that may be required to implement and support the solution; and,

d. Inform future budget planning.

2.0 Statement of Objectives

The CMS solution shall have the capability to manage and track cases.

Scope of Work

Functional Requirements

1. User Authentication and Role Assignment o Secure login for all users with role-based access control.

o Ability to assign roles such as Medical Officer, IIC, GC/TDA, HP/SF, Supervisor/Chief, Clerk, Basic User, External User, and System Administrator.

o Allow medical officers and administrators to manage users at system and case levels o Allow selected case-level personnel to manage other case-level personnel assignments o Facilitate system-wide user notifications, including with start/end times set by medical officers and administrators

2. Secure Data Transfer and Storage o Support for secure uploading and storing of medical records, toxicology and autopsy reports, injury information, etc.

o Encryption for sensitive data, particularly PII and health information records.

3. Case Creation and Management o Ability for users to initiate new cases and import basic event information from NTSB Accident attributes from a database named “Keys”.

o Structure cases with data regarding vehicles involved, persons per vehicle, and medical records per person.

4. Workflow Automation o Automated alerts and notifications for case progression.

o Support for iterative data collection and review phases.

5. Medical Review and Analysis o Capability for medical officers to perform preliminary and detailed medical reviews.

o Tools for injury and medical coding, analysis, and note-taking.

6. Data Access Control o Restricted access to sensitive data based on system-level user role and case-level personnel role.

o Viewing and editing permissions for case details, medical records, and coding.

7. Integration with External Systems o Interface for external users to securely upload data without accessing the main MEDICS system.

o Integration with other NTSB IT systems and external agencies for data exchange, and evolution of this integration as other systems evolve.

8. Audit and Logging o Comprehensive logging of all case actions, data uploads, user notes, and system activities.

o Time- and date-stamped logs for tracking case status and user activity.

o Customizable user notifications for certain actions o Error tracking and reporting

9. Reporting and Documentation o Facilitation of Draft and Final Reports capturing medical findings.

o Integration with advanced dashboard functionality for tracking medical consult metrics.

o Removal of health information records from closed cases as per records retention policies.

10. Case Reopening and Updates o Capability to reopen closed cases if new information or questions arise.

11. Import Data o Capability to transfer current data into the new platform.

12. Search Feature o Robust search capabilities enabling users to filter by assigned cases and additional fields, contingent on their access rights.

13. Document Management o Enable document modifications based on user roles and permissions.

14. Messaging Service o Allow users to request documents and send reminder notifications.

15. Export Functionality o Facilitate the transfer of requested data to external applications or systems.

Non-Functional Requirements

1. Scalability o Support for over 100 users and potential expansion as needed.

2. Performance o Fast retrieval and processing of medical data and case information.

3. Security o Compliance with Privacy Act and other relevant data protection regulations.

o Secure interfaces for external users and data transfers.

4. Usability o Intuitive user interface tailored for different roles and workflow needs.

5. Reliability o High availability and fault tolerance to ensure continuous system operation.

6. Maintainability o Easy configuration and management by system administrators.

User Role-Specific Requirements

1. External User o Secure interface for data upload by authenticated users without directly accessing application.

2. Basic User o Access to overview of MEDICS cases and ability to initiate new cases.

3. Supervisor/Chief o Detailed status view of cases within their mode/region.

4. IIC

o Access to upload/retrieve limited health information records.

5. GC/TDA

o Upload health information records, and access non-medical data (including PII).

6. Clerk o Support for upload/transfer of health information records.

7. HP/SF

o Full access to health information records for assigned cases.

8. Medical Officer o Access to all health information records, operational components, and medical codings.

9. System Administrator o Complete system access for user management and maintenance.

Stakeholders As MEDICS is associated with the medical portion of all investigations, there are many NTSB stakeholders and potential system users.

The stakeholders include:

All investigators use MEDICS to securely store and manage investigatory health information records.

Medical staff from RE use MEDICS as the primary application to support their medical investigations, including investigations of human performance and survival factors.

All investigation modes are included. Within each mode, there are investigators, division chiefs, Human Performance (HP), and Survival Factors (SF) roles that will directly use MEDICS.

The modes are:

• Office of Aviation Safety

• Office of Marine Safety

• Office of Railroad, Pipeline, and Hazardous Materials Investigations

• Office of Highway Safety

• In some cases, the Transportation Disaster Assistance (TDA) Division may use

MEDICS as they coordinate victim identification and forensic services.

• The Office of the General Counsel (GC) provides legal support to include subpoenas for medical information.

• The Office of Chief Information Officer (CIO) provides support for all NTSB information technology applications. The CIO also manages records and actions associated with

• FOIA requests, which may involve MEDICS.

• The Response Operations Center (ROC) may be requested to initiate cases in

MEDICS.

• External agencies such as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Civil

Aerospace Medical Institute (CAMI) may have health information records to upload to MEDICS.

Security Requirements

• As MEDICS will contain sensitive and private information, it must ensure that only authorized people can access and view this information.

• MEDICS will utilize a combination of technical safeguards and journalizing to protect its data.

• MEDICS will only be available internal users, and only authorized NTSB staff can gain access. User roles are assigned to restrict private information to those directly involved in the investigation.

• Journalizing is the recording of selected events as they occur within the system, and it provides a basis for monitoring the use of MEDICS by system users.

Interface Definitions MEDICS will contain interfaces to several NTSB data systems. Some systems may provide investigation-specific data that may be imported or mirrored in MEDICS;

others may provide workflow status, a request message, direct site links, or reference data.

These interfaces are listed below, with a description of the information to be transferred.

• Subpoena Application. This application can generate and track form-filled subpoenas for records and specimens.

o MEDICS will provide data fields (name, address, etc.) needed to initiate a subpoena and will prompt users to enter relevant information based on the type of request o MEDICS will integrate with the subpoena application to facilitate investigator and Office of General Counsel workflows, including status notifications, notifications of overdue responses, and tracking of completed and outstanding requests

• NTSB Keys. This database contains basic information on all NTSB investigations and studies, including unique keys number.

o MEDICS will import or look up basic incident/accident data including date, location, brief description, and IIC

• NTSB staff. This database contains a listing of all active NTSB employees and staff.

o MEDICS will import employee listing for user management

• Docket management system (MyDMS). This is a document repository for

NTSB investigations with partition for public-side and official-use-only data.

o MEDICS will facilitate export of health information records to MyDMS, in accordance with permissions based on case-level personnel roles and record types.

• SAFTI. NTSB’s System for Analysis of Federal Transportation Investigations (SAFTI) SAFTI. SAFTI is an enterprise-line business application that tracks NTSB investigation workflow and case management across all modal offices, consolidating and standardizing processes and data.

o MEDICS will enable sharing of common data fields

• FOIA database. This system tracks FOIA requests and status.

o MEDICS will enable sharing of common data fields

• Future Application Integration. NTSB application development is ongoing, with a goal of increased application integration.

o MEDICS will be adaptable and expandable to interface with future NTSB applications and with existing applications as they gain new functionality.

o MEDICS will facilitate navigation and data flow among such applications

(for example, linking to safety recommendation database), subject to appropriate controls

The proposed application shall support the government’s obligation to provide accessible technologies to its citizens with disabilities as required by Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1974, and its state law counterparts.

Price is obviously an issue with any customer. We anticipate a user base of approximately 100 people. We would like to understand your pricing model (per user/per case, etc.). Additionally, we would like to understand what annual ongoing expenses will be incurred in future years including customization, maintenance or licenses.

3.0 Responses

3.1 Interested parties are requested to respond to this RFI.

3.2 Written responses in a PDF compatible format are due no later than July 9, 2025 at 4:00 PM/Eastern Time (ET). Responses shall be submitted via e-mail only to bryan.moy@ntsb.gov. Proprietary information, if any, should be minimized and MUST BE CLEARLY MARKED. To aid the Government, please segregate proprietary information. Please be advised that all submissions become Government property and will not be returned.

3.3. Section 1 of the response shall provide administrative information, and shall include the following as a minimum:

3.3.1. Organization Name, mailing address, physical address (if different from mailing address), phone number, fax number, and e-mail of designated point of contact.

mailto:bryan.moy@ntsb.gov

3.3.2. Tailored capability statements addressing the particulars of this effort, with appropriate documentation supporting claims of organizational and staff capability. If significant subcontracting or teaming is anticipated to deliver technical capability, organizations should address the administrative and management structure of such arrangements.

3.3.3. Business type (large business, small business, small disadvantaged business, 8(a)-certified small disadvantaged business, HUBZone small business, woman-owned small business, very small business, veteran-owned small business, service-disabled veteran-owned small business), GSA schedule contract number if applicable, based upon North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code 513210 or 511210 Software Publishers. Please refer to Federal Acquisition Regulation FAR 19 for additional detailed information on Small Business Size Standards.

There is no page limit for Section 1 of the response above, and the number of pages in Section 1 shall not be included in the 10-page limitation below. The 10-page limitation applies only to Section 2 of the response.

3.4 Section 2 of the response shall answer the question below and shall be limited to 10 pages:

a. Within the Section 2.0 Statement of Objectives, is there any information that is not clear, or could otherwise be improved upon in order to perform the requirements of the contract to industry standards?

4.0 Questions

Questions regarding this announcement shall be submitted in writing by e-mail to the Contract Specialist at bryan.moy@ntsb.gov. Verbal questions will NOT be accepted.

Questions will be answered by posting answers to the selected government point of entry; accordingly, questions shall NOT contain proprietary or classified information.

The Government does not guarantee that questions received after July 3, 2025 at 4:00 PM/ET will be answered.

5.0 Summary

THIS IS A REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI) ONLY to identify parties that can provide a Medical Investigation Catalog System that meets NTSB agency needs. The information provided in the RFI is subject to change and is not binding on the Government. NTSB has not made a commitment to procure any of the items discussed, and release of this RFI should not be construed as such a commitment or as http://www.arnet.gov/far/current/html/FARTOCP19.html mailto:bryan.moy@ntsb.gov authorization to incur cost for which reimbursement would be required or sought. All submissions become Government property and will not be returned.