S02 - Attachment D - Task Order 1_PWS KBS Standards and Interoperability.docx

PERFORMANCE WORK STATEMENT (PWS)

DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS

OFFICE OF HEALTH INFORMATICS (OHI)

CLINICAL INFORMATICS AND DATA MANAGEMENT OFFICE (CIDMO)

KNOWLEDGE BASED SYSTEMS (KBS)

STANDARDS AND INTEROPERABILITY (S&I)

INTEGRATED HEALTH STANDARDS SUPPORT IDIQ

TASK ORDER #1

Date: April 20, 2021 Task Order PWS Version Number: 3.0

1.0 BACKGROUND

The Veterans Health Administration’s (VHA) Knowledge Based Systems Office (KBS), Standards & Interoperability (S&I) Division provides strategic guidance, subject matter and policy expertise concerning standards implementation in VA information technology (IT) systems. Standards & Interoperability covers a continuum of activities including the identification of VA requirements for health interoperability standards/profiles, to the development of standards/profiles with federal and private sector standards development organizations (SDO) and standards related organizations (SRO), development and sustenance of internal VA and external provider collaborative engagements required for supporting requisite Health Information Technology (HIT) architecture, systems operability and interoperability, the development of implementation models, prototypes, and implementation guidance and for providing a range of standards-related expertise to VA development teams as needed.

All innovation in the wider realm of Health IT, including VA, must be founded in standards that support true semantic interoperability, including telehealth, mobile devices, care coordination, home care, analytics, predictive modeling, population health, research, and Veteran engagement. One example of this, the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) has created and fine-tuned a substantial amount of clinical decision support (CDS) within its EHR; however, as in many other healthcare organizations, the CDS as historically implemented is in a non-standard, non-shareable format tightly dependent on specific legacy technology.

Achieving semantic interoperability necessitates the use of open standards supportive of the continuum of care serving our Veteran population, both within and outside of VA. That support includes clinical data, but also must address the sharing of clinical best practices, seamless transitions between care institutions, effective clinical decision support, and collaborative and portable workflows and processes.

2.0 APPLICABLE DOCUMENTS

Reference Paragraph 2.0 of the KBS Integrated Health Standards Support IDIQ.

3.0 SCOPE OF WORK

Collaboration between business owners and health standards architects, VA project teams, and industry expertise and standards-related organizations leads to successful, open-source health standards-based solutions to meet VA’s needs. The S&I contract team’s subject matter experts must engage in VA, Government, and industry efforts to advance data and knowledge sharing in support of a seamless Veteran care experience. Whether working collaboratively with VA project teams, such as the EHR Modernization Program, or engaging in workgroups to advance standards such as HL7 Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR), this tasking provides support to advance, consume, implement, and improve industry standards and their usage in support of Veteran care and wellness.

The purpose of this Task Order is to acquire services to accomplish the following, to advance the clinical decision support agenda and improvements in availability, and accuracy of patient data, improved interoperability, clinical knowledge and workflow, and advancement of underpinning activities to that objective:

1. Program and Project Management, and Knowledge Management

2. SDO, Industry, and Government Project Engagement

3. Interoperability Strategy and Architecture

4. VA Standards Advancement and Adoption

5. Security Standards Framework

3.1 ORDER TYPE

The efforts shall be proposed on a Firm Fixed Price (FFP) basis.

4.0 PERFORMANCE DETAILS

The following describes the performance details associated with this Task Order.

4.1 PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE

The period of performance shall be twelve (12) months from date of award.

4.2 PLACE OF PERFORMANCE

Efforts under this TO shall be performed at Contractor facilities.

4.3 TRAVEL

Travel costs will be included in the TO award as a separate, cost-reimbursable, “not to exceed” line item. Registration fees for meetings and conferences will be an additional, separate, cost-reimbursable, “not to exceed” line item. Travel will be requested, approved and reimbursed in accordance with the Task Order.

For all travel under this TO, the Contractor shall produce a summary trip report and submit it to the Government programmatic leadership. The Government estimates the following travel for the Period of Performance (PoP):

S&I Base Travel

Optional Travel

5.0 SPECIFIC TASKS AND DELIVERABLES

MONTHLY STATUS REPORTS

The Contractor shall provide a comprehensive monthly status report by the fifth (5th) business day of the following month. The monthly report will describe progress and activities related to all task activities and deliverables mentioned in section 5.1 below, as well as task work adjustments or change requests, project issues and risk assessments, deliverables completion and schedule status, and summary notations of any background investigations and outstanding training requirements.

Deliverable: Monthly Status Reports

5.1 SPECIFIC TASKS

5.1.1. - Task 1: Program and Project Management, and Knowledge Management

5.1.1.1. Program Management: The Contractor shall hold a monthly Program Management Review (PMR) with the KBS Standards and Interoperability (S&I) program office, unless cancelled by the client in advance. The Contractor will lead each PMR conducted. It is anticipated that each PMR conducted will be approximately 90 minutes in duration.

Deliverables:

· CLIN0001: Program Management Review (Quantity 9 – Due by 5th business day of following month)

· CLIN0001-OPTIONAL: Program Management Review (Quantity up to 3 – Due by 5th business day of following month)

5.1.1.2. Project Management: The Contractor shall manage the tactical activities that are encompassed within this scope of work, including but not limited to resource management, communication and meeting coordination/facilitation, deliverable schedule management, change management, risk management, and status reporting to Contractor and Government programmatic leadership. The Contractor shall insure that programmatic leadership is proactively aware of progress, challenges, limitations and/or risks associated within the various task-specific areas of the program, including participation as needed or appropriate within tactical meetings or activities.

The Contractor shall create and maintain a project management plan that lays out the Contractor’s approach, timeline (via an Integrated Master Project Schedule), and tools to be used in execution of this TO effort. The contractor project management plan should take the form of both a narrative and graphic format that displays the schedule, milestones, risks and resource support. The contractor project management plan shall also include how the Contractor shall coordinate and execute planned, routine, and ad hoc reporting requests as identified within the PWS. Once established and approved, the Contractor shall provide monthly updates to the project schedule as necessary or required to support the program.

Deliverables:

· CLIN0002: Contractor Project Management Plan with Integrated Master Schedule – Initial Draft (Quantity 1 – Due by End of Month 1)

· CLIN0003: Contractor Integrated Master Schedule (Quantity 8 – Due by End of each month.)

· CLIN0003-OPTIONAL: Contractor Integrated Master Schedule (Quantity up to 3)

5.1.1.3. Communications and Stakeholder Outreach Support: Promulgating awareness of standards, their intended usage, and corresponding implementation considerations and issues is a principal objective of KBS. In support of this objective, the project team shall manage and administer a knowledge transfer and educational program. This includes but is not limited to:

· Review industry literature and key communications to assemble a bi-weekly artifact of key HIT activities, emerging standards, relevant articles influencing standards work and policy, and events of relevance to KBS and KBS stakeholders. Intent is to contextualize useful articles and content sources to keep the team and interested stakeholders abreast of breaking news and priority items. No original authoring is required as part of this activity, though summarizing in 1-2 sentences the key take-away and importance/relevance of included citations will be required.

Deliverable

· CLIN0004: HIT Industry Scan Summary Report – Bi-Weekly (Quantity 26)

5.1.1.4. Standards Knowledge Transfer, Education, and Training: Promulgating awareness of standards, their intended usage, and corresponding implementation considerations and issues is a principal objective of KBS. In support of this objective, the project team shall manage and administer a knowledge transfer and educational program. This includes but is not limited to:

· Organize, facilitate, conduct, and host a series of educational sessions (monthly), conducted as webinar/phone teleconferences on a variety of topics germane to VA business needs around interoperability and standards. The Contractor shall work with Government personnel to identify candidate topics, secure commitments from internal and external speakers, and facilitate training sessions, “roundtable” discussion forums, and alternative presentation approaches to allow for VA community interaction and education.

· Improvement of on-demand educational resources, such as enhanced web/wiki presence, extended knowledgebase contributions to the KBS SharePoint and other knowledge repositories, etc.

· Define, develop, enhance, extend, and participate in delivery of a health interoperability curriculum, developing and delivering topic-specific educational activities to enhance skillsets within the VA community around key standards themes or approaches. This may manifest in multiple modalities: in-person training, webinar, recorded presentation, or teleconference/videoconference. Topics will draw from standards work supported within Industry Engagement, Applied Standards, or Standards Strategy activities.

Deliverable

· CLIN0005-OPTIONAL: Articles and core content contributions to a Standards Newsletter and Publication (Quantity up to 4)

· CLIN0006: Standards Educations Session (“Lunch & Learn or Roundtable”) (Quantity 6 )

· CLIN0006-OPTIONAL: Standards Educations Session (“Lunch & Learn or Roundtable”) (Quantity up to 6)

· CLIN0007-OPTIONAL: Standards Topic-specific Education Curriculum Delivery (Quantity up to 4)

5.1.2. - Task 2: SDO, Industry, and Government Project Engagement

Priority emphasis and recommendations on standards gap areas where the absence of implementation guidance for a standard is adversely affecting seamless Veteran care (Care Coordination, FHIR, Community Partnerships, etc.) This activity assesses the efficacy of existing standards to address VA needs: clinical decision support, order set management, data representation and format to support computer-based inferencing, data format standards, data transfer standards, expression languages for clinical workflow, system interchange standards protocols, and so on.

Identification, gap analysis, and engagement recommendations to support VA modernization priorities in standards adoption and implementation guidance. Active participation in the standards development or standards related organizations (SDO/SRO) community for the advancement of standards supporting a seamless Veteran care experience (i.e. Health Level 7 [HL7], Object Management Group [OMG], Logica Health, Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise [IHE], etc.), including inpatient, outpatient, long-term care, community care, tele- and home-health, etc. Note that this includes interoperability pertaining to EHRs, CDS, clinical systems, administrative systems, medical devices, and clinical knowledge.

This task also involves support and participation in cross-agency and cross-Government health IT activities, including intra-Governmental workgroups and forums, to include efforts from the Department of Health and Human Services, the Federal Electronic Health Record Modernization (FEHRM), cross-Department workgroups for Unique Device Identifier (UDI) adoption, and many others.

5.1.2.1. Industry Initiative Participation: To assure that industry standards are fit for purpose to support Veteran needs, a sustained commitment to participating in industry standards bodies and consortia is essential. It is only through ongoing and regular participation that early insight into emerging relevant work can be gained, and the standards evolutionary process necessitates involvement in the development and maturation of the standard before it progresses to formal voting and ballot stages. Note that this participation will be initiative (goal) based, necessitating involvement in one or multiple bodies or workgroups to achieve the objective, and driven by KBS priorities.

The Contractor shall engage, at the direction of the Government provided quarterly in writing and adjusted and discussed monthly, directly within the health IT (HIT) community. The degree of engagement or organizational posture relative to each effort will be determined by the government, consisting of activities such as:

· Initiative (or Workgroup) Leadership – Assuming a formal leadership responsibility within key workgroup or initiatives, such as Co-Chair or Facilitator roles. These represent significant involvement including setting strategic direction for the group, convening and facilitating meetings, project-managing workgroup activities, producing standards, implementation guides, or other artifacts. Workgroup leadership activities will be directly tied to the creation and delivery of standards artifacts within the community that directly support the needs of the VA, as described below.

Active Participation – regular, active involvement within one or multiple workgroups as a contributing member. Responsibilities would include drafting candidate standards content (e.g., HL7 ballot content, OMG RFP response contribution), document review, teleconference call participation, etc. Active participation is expected to involve regular attendance at working meetings of the respective group, participation and engagement in teleconference calls, direct contribution to assets being developed by the corresponding activity (e.g., ballot review, collaborative authoring, acceptance of and delivery against action items identified as group needs, etc.)

Active participation is a lesser resource engagement than developing proposed artifacts, as this characterized a collaborative engagement and support role contrasted with a principal authorship/leadership role. Each “Active Participation” Deliverable takes the form of a monthly status update on the respective set of activities, to be included within the scheduled Program Management Reviews.

The Contractor shall support VA engagement in multiple standards or industry bodies, with an emphasis on furthering data, knowledge, and process interoperability. Participation will be driven by strategic objectives identified by the Government, with involvement from the Contractor team supporting objective-based participation. As active participation involves teleconference participation, workgroup attendance, acceptance of action items, writing assignments, and several other similar activities, the LOE anticipated for this support is not envisioned to vary dependent upon workgroup or activity.

Contract staff can and likely will be supporting multiple workgroups, and often multiple organizations, in support of any one objective. The effort involved in the above will vary based upon complexity of the subject and the nature of the participation.

Content contributions to industry make take a variety of forms and will be generically referenced as Proposed Standards Artifacts. The purpose of these deliverables is to draft proposed standards (or portions of standards) to address shortcomings in existing, available standards that adversely impact Veteran care. In order to mitigate issues that have been identified, the Contractor shall develop proposed technical content for contribution to the respective industry or federal workgroup for consideration and inclusion in their standards work. These contributions may be of several formats, including but not limited to technical specifications, implementation recommendations or guidance, application programming interfaces (APIs), data constructs or representations (e.g., HL7 FHIR Resources), information models, workflow models, semantic models, and architectures.

Proposed Standards Artifacts will be developed on behalf of VA, with the intention of contributing that work into the SDO community for validation, ballot, or acceptance. It is recognized that some of these artifacts will be created de novo, and others will be extensions, adaptations, or enhancements of existing works.

The Contractor shall survey emergent standards activities to identify areas of high-impact and potential high-risk, engaging within community efforts to advocate for VA needs, to provide content and subject expertise, and to facilitate advancement of VA priorities. This may take the form of the following, as examples:

· Identify, convene, and participate in “Connectathon” tracks or activities in support of VA business priorities.

· Collaborate with open implementation efforts, such as open-source projects or community-sourced activities, to identify and mitigate risks associated with standards determined to have promise or potential benefit to Veterans and VA

· Identify technical, skillset, or policy gaps adversely affecting VA adoption of candidate standards, and document mitigation strategies to close those gaps.

· Engage in advancement of reference implementation activities, to advance industry adoption of standards advantageous to VA interoperability objectives.

Deliverables:

· CLIN0008: Industry Project Leadership – (Quantity 4)

· CLIN0008- OPTIONAL: Industry Project Leadership – (Quantity up to 16)

· CLIN009: Ongoing Industry Active Participation (Quantity 12)

· CLIN0010: Proposed Standards Artifacts (Small) – (Quantity 3)

· CLIN0010- OPTIONAL: Proposed Standards Artifacts (Small) – (Quantity up to 12)

· CLIN0011: Proposed Standards Artifacts (Medium) – (Quantity 1)

· CLIN0011- OPTIONAL: Proposed Standards Artifacts (Medium) – (Quantity up to 12)

· CLIN0012: Proposed Standards Artifacts (Large) – (Quantity 1)

· CLIN0012- OPTIONAL: Proposed Standards Artifacts (Large) – (Quantity up to 6)

5.1.2.2. SDO/SRO Ballot Reviews: The Contractor shall facilitate, conduct, and contribute to VA Ballot review processes (or corresponding standards validation/voting efforts) on behalf of VA stakeholders with alignment to VA priorities. The Contractor shall engage and support VA stakeholders in their reviews of said content to reduce or remove administrative burdens from VA subject matter experts while benefitting from their inputs to the process. Where possible, the Contractor shall identify partner organizations to foster community consensus among like-minded organizations, advancing VA interests and reducing review burden. Additionally, the Contractor shall provide direct SME content reviews in areas of interoperability and compliance within review processes. The Contractor must facilitate establishing a VA position on ballotable items, and support VA voting.

Deliverables:

· CLIN0013: SDO/SRO Ballot Review Comments and Reconciliation (Quantity 3)

· CLIN0014-OPTIONAL: SDO/SRO Ballot Comment Briefings Facilitation (Quantity up to 3)

5.1.3. – Task 3: Interoperability Strategy and Architecture

Maintaining focus on the ability for interoperability standards to support VA’s needs and mission not only today, but in the future, necessitates maintaining a strategic focus. This task area principally addresses the trajectory and target-state of the industry, considering how best to identify potential opportunities for advancement both of industry capability and VA’s consumption of that innovation to best serve Veteran needs. Looking at CDS, Clinical Quality and Best Practices, “state of the industry”, and other factors such as security and privacy, this task will help VA position to both influence and consume industry priorities and innovation. The intent is to amplify emerging standards work to achieve that state, and positioning VHA to best take advantage of and interact with industry organizations and resources. The Contractor shall provide strategic planning for the alignment of relevant standards necessary for seamless Veteran care (care coordination, remote care delivery, mobile healthcare, telemedicine, security, privacy etc.) within VA programs that can take on several forms with a variety of intents:

· Recommendation Assessments, including an analysis of alternatives and establishment of a recommended approach or strategy

· Strategic Plan, which includes evaluation of an environment or business context in consideration of a set of objectives, to determine a recommended strategy toward achieving those objectives

· Gap Analysis, looking at competing efforts or activities and determining the differences between them, and potential approaches to remediate identified gaps.

· Gap Remediation, which would involve advancement of standards activities (such as the development of proposed standards content, ballot material, white papers, models, maps, etc.) to address identified shortcomings in an identified artifact

The Contractor shall provide expert-level ongoing interoperability strategy expertise to help develop and mature VHA’s interoperability strategy. The intent of the effort is to best position VHA to most effectively provide seamless care among multiple organizations and institutions involved in a Veteran’s care, providing as seamless an experience as possible while safeguarding Veteran privacy. This necessitates not only remaining attuned to where the HIT industry is heading, but in exerting VA influence within the industry in an informed and enlightened manner to drive toward the best possible outcomes.

5.1.3.1 Industry Interoperability and Strategy Support: Given that a substantial portion of VA care is delivered in the community, and often in organizations with no fiduciary ties to VA, it is essential that VA participate in and influence the national Health Information Technology (HIT) landscape to advance standards, frameworks, and interoperability platforms to better allow sharing among health provider organizations. In collaboration with the Government, the Contractor shall identify communities of practice advancing this agenda, recommending an engagement and participation strategy to advance this topic. The Contractor shall participate in the selected efforts, representing VA requirements and interests. This participation includes activities such as:

· Participation in working meetings to advance HIT industry architecture and interoperability,

· Contribution of use cases, business requirements, and subject expertise,

· Critical review of pre-publication artifacts

· Bridging relevant industry work with VA internal efforts

The result of analysis will be represented as Decision Brief documents, approximately 3-5 pages in length, exploring the identified opportunity areas and recommending strategy for VA engagement. Analysis will be due 30 days from topic designation unless mutually agreed between Government and Contractor.

Maintaining focus on the ability for interoperability standards to support VA’s needs and mission not only today, but in the future, necessitates maintaining a strategic focus. This task principally addresses the trajectory and target-state of the industry and the positioning of SDOs and emerging standards work to achieve that state. Strategic planning for the alignment of relevant standards necessary for seamless Veteran care (care coordination, remote care delivery, mobile healthcare, telemedicine, etc.) within VA programs. The Strategy Workgroup must be comprised of a unique mix of world-class industry experts who can advise the Government on emerging industry initiatives, the impact to the VA, and recommendations on how the Government should address them.

For Strategy Support, the Contractor shall provide expert-level interoperability expertise to help develop and mature VHA’s Interoperability Strategy. The intent of the effort is to best position VHA to most effectively provide seamless care among multiple organizations and institutions involved in a Veteran’s care, providing as seamless an experience as possible. This necessitates not only remaining attuned to where the HIT industry is heading, but in exerting VA influence within the industry in an informed and enlightened manner to drive toward the best possible outcomes.

Each activity will be ascribed a rough-order-of-magnitude (ROM) sizing (Small or Large), in collaboration with the Contractor for concurrence. These assessments/consultations may be requested singly or severally as required by VA. The program office will provide a detailed description, complexity level, due date, and required outputs/deliverables prior to assigning an assessment/consultation activity.

Deliverables:

· CLIN0015: Strategy Workgroup Status Reports – Monthly (Quantity 6)

· CLIN0015-OPTIONAL: Strategy Workgroup Status Reports – Monthly (Quantity up to 6)

· CLIN0016: Decision Briefs (Quantity 4)

· CLIN0016-OPTIONAL: Decision Briefs (Quantity up to 15)

· CLIN0017-OPTIONAL: Strategic Assessments – Large (Quantity up to 10)

· CLIN0018-OPTIONAL: Strategic Assessments – Small (Quantity up to 15)

5.1.3.2. Interoperable VA (iVA) Blueprint: The iVA Blueprint identifies relevant HIT standards, put into context of a referenceable solution architecture to provide informative guidance to VHA, OIT, Program Offices, non-VA clinical and business stakeholders. This will allow VHA to more effectively support projects and acquisitions in support of business interoperability needs in part by identifying which standards need to be used under what circumstances and providing clear and actionable guidance for project teams. This effort allows identified gaps within the industry standards portfolio to be risk mitigated, improving VA’s interoperability posture both internally and with external care partners.

The Contractor shall review, enhance, update, and revise the iVA Blueprint to maintain currency of that artifact with best industry practices and emerging standards work. This includes provision of subject expertise to VA working groups, facilitation of enhancement activities, development of architectural diagrams or standards implementation guidance, critical review and independent assessment of guidance provided, and comparative analysis between VHA and related industry efforts.

Deliverables:

· CLIN0019: iVA Blueprint Updates – Monthly (Quantity 6)

· CLIN0019-OPTIONAL: iVA Blueprint Updates – Monthly (Quantity up to 6)

5.1.4. - Task 4: VA Standards Advancement and Adoption

5.1.4.1. VA Project Team Support and Mentoring: The Contractor shall engage with VA project teams to advance the utilization of and compliance with identified standards guidance, with the objective of improving VAs interoperability posture within and outside of the agency. The team shall interpret existing VA standards guidance, such as the VA Enterprise Architecture, the Technical Reference Model (TRM), the iVA Blueprint, and other government-furnished information (GFI) documents, assisting project teams in making informed design and implementation decisions. Note that this includes interoperability pertaining to EHRs, clinical systems, administrative systems, medical devices, clinical knowledge, etc.

As requested, the team shall conduct independent assessment of project work as relating to standards usage and make recommendations to allow projects to better align with and utilize health interoperability standards. The Contractor shall maintain a log of project engagements and recommendations, documenting both positive and problematic implementation patterns for use in refining VA guidance.

Project team support will be stratified into two types of engagement: ongoing and tactical. Ongoing engagement will involve routine active participation in project activities, including but not limited to attendance on working calls, monthly design reviews, document reviews, etc. Tactical engagement will involve a short-term involvement with the project team, generally the form of attendance at key design or document reviews, and a resultant recommendation document. For example, KBS may be identified to provide sustained standards support to the Office of the EHR Modernization Program (OEHRM) on an ongoing basis. This would likely include providing applied FHIR expertise, interoperability strategy support, requirements support, standards configuration guidance, etc. Alternatively, KBS could be asked to provide a “standards consult” to review a specific implementation design and provide informed feedback, for example with FHIR financial standards guidance to X12 mappings.

Working with Government personnel, the Contractor shall identify a prioritized list of candidates where either a VA standards profile or a VA-specific implementation guide is required or warranted. With a focus on FHIR, CCDA, Clinical Workflows, and Decision Support Models, a prioritized set of recommendations for elaborated standards guidance for VA implementation will be documented with anticipated level of effort (Small, Medium, Large), selection rationale, and nature of the guidance required (implementation guide, VA standards profile, etc.). Recommendations will be reviewed by the Government, prioritized, and selections made for execution. Each selection will be developed in two stages: an interim and final artifact, thus providing mechanisms to support iterative enhancement and government feedback on the work.

Additionally, there is significant value in assisting S&I, KBS, and CIDMO at large with the awareness of the subject matter expertise that this office can provide to projects across the department. The Contractor shall support strategic communications and intra-agency outreach efforts that may arise from a number of sources. The Contractor shall also provide recommendations on things such as the identification of projects for which to engage, a strategic approach to project engagement, and assistance with “marketing” the standards expertise that this office can provide.

Deliverables:

· CLIN0020: VA Projects Standards Adoption Ongoing Engagement – Monthly (Quantity 12)

· CLIN0021- OPTIONAL: VA Projects Standards Adoption Tactical Engagement (Quantity up to 12)

5.1.4.2. VA Standards Configuration and Tailored Implementation Guidance. The current industry trend favors under specification within a core standard, and then identifying enhancement or extension mechanisms to allow for implementing organizations to address additional constraints not addressed within the base specification. As a result, to achieve interoperability necessitates the adoption of “standards profiles” which broaden the scope of the standard to address additional scope items needed for interoperability. For the purposes of a common reference, these shall be designed VA-Configured Standards Artifacts.

Working with Government personnel, the Contractor shall identify a prioritized list of candidates where either a VA standards profile or a VA-specific Implementation Guide is required or warranted. Recommendations will be reviewed by the Government, prioritized, and selections made for execution.

Deliverables:

· CLIN0022-OPTIONAL: VA Configured Standards Artifacts - Small (Quantity up to 15)

· CLIN0023-OPTIONAL: VA Configured Standards Artifacts - Medium (Quantity up to 15)

· CLIN0024-OPTIONAL: VA Configured Standards Artifacts - Large (Quantity up to 12)

5.1.5 Task 5: Security Standards Framework

5.1.5.1 Healthcare Security Standards Development. The contractor shall participate in and collaborate with Government on selected topics relevant to VHA security standards development activities. Participation includes advancing VHA interests by attending and facilitating HL7 Security Weekly Teleconferences (on weeks that meetings are held) and HL7 formal Security Work Group Meetings (3 per year; 2 in person, 1 virtual), reviewing ballots, collaborating with Government on SDO topics relevant to VHA, completing existing projects and bringing projects to ballot or re-ballot, participating in ballot reconciliation and updates, and ballot reaffirmations as required. Supported Standards Development Organizations (SDOs):

i. Primary SDO:

a. Health Level Seven (HL7) Security Work Group Only

ii. Secondary SDOs

a. Health Level Seven (HL7) and other standards-related Work Groups and Committees

Deliverables:

· CLIN0025-OPTIONAL: Project Specific Issue Papers, Briefing Materials, and Technical Artifacts. Topics to be provided within 30 calendar days of beginning of quarter – Quarterly (Quantity 4 – Due 90 days after award and every 90 days following)

· CLIN0026: HL7 Weekly Tele-Meeting Coordination (Agendas, Minutes, Facilitation, Participation, Updates) for Primary SDO only – Weekly (Quantity 40 – Due by End of Week, assigned weeks from time of award, billed monthly)

· CLIN0027: HL7 Existing Project Ballot Material, Reconciliation, Updates, Reaffirmations, and Publishing for Primary SDO only – Quarterly (Quantity 3 – In accordance with applicable HL7 deadlines in conjunction with scheduled HL7 Work Group Meetings (January, May, and September 2020).

· CLIN0028: HL7 SDO Work Group Meetings (2 in person, 1 virtual) administrative meeting coordination documents, pre-meeting requirements, and post meeting report as required for Primary SDO only – (Quantity 3 – Due by 10 working days after each HL7 Work Group Meeting)

· CLIN0029-OPTIONAL: Secondary SDO Meeting Participation and Report - Monthly (Quantity up to 12 – Due by End of Month after award and every month following)

Deliverables Table

5.1.1. - Task 1: Program and Project Management, and Knowledge Management

5.1.2. - Task 2: SDO, Industry, and Government Project Engagement

5.1.3. – Task 3: Interoperability Strategy and Architecture

5.1.4. - Task 4: VA Standards Advancement and Adoption

5.1.5 Task 5: Security Standards Framework

This deliverable is listed as “assigned” weeks because the primary SDO (Security Work Group) doesn’t meet every week. The schedule changes depending on work load. My intention was to say support meetings as scheduled by the work group not to exceed 40.

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