S02- JA Laurel Bridge Router Application SW_CLEAN_REDACTED.pdf

Brand Name Laurel Bridge Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine Router Application Software and Maintenance | Control Number: VA-25-00030265

JUSTIFICATIONFOR 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 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 Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) Router Application Software, Maintenance and Professional Services support for the Clinical Imaging Office.

3. Description of the Supplies or Services: The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Office of Information & Technology (OIT), Software Product Delivery, (SPD) Health Infrastructure and Systems Management (HISM), Clinical Imaging Office (CIO) has a requirement for enhancement of the existing Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) Router Application software that interacts with the VA's Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA) Imaging system.

Recently, the VA’s CIO has been tasked by the local facility as well as Health Technology management to provide an enhancement to the existing DICOM Compass Router system to route medical images and studies from VistA Imaging to other medical diagnostic equipment for analysis and additional processing. The VA requires this enhancement for the current router infrastructure, so that it will increase the processing efficiency and fault tolerance by decreasing the overall duty time of each DICOM Compass Router. VA requires a DICOM system that meets our redundancy, fault tolerance or operational load balancing for VistA Imaging flow and route operations.

Further, VA currently has already installed brand name Laurel Bridge compass routers across the required Veterans Integrated Service Networks (VISN). The acquisition for

DICOM Router Application software will enhance current utilities of the DICOM compass router hardware and ensure that its functions will not be disrupted. This procurement shall include Brand Name Laurel Bridge DICOM Router Application Software Licenses, Maintenance, and a not-to-exceed limit for Professional Services support.

The period of performance shall be 12- months from the date of award, along with an optional task for Professional Services support. The total estimated price for this proposed action

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. 4106(c)(2) as implemented by FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i)(B), entitled “Only one awardee is capable of providing the supplies or services required at the level of quality required because the supplies or services ordered are unique or highly specialized”.

5. Rationale Supporting Use of Authority Cited Above: Based on the market research efforts outlined in Section 8 of this justification, the Government’s technical experts have determined that limited competition is available among authorized resellers for the required brand name Laurel Bridge software. Due to the proprietary nature of the Laurel Bridge software, Laurel Bridge is the only manufacturer capable of meeting the Government’s requirements of providing the software licenses and professional services to upgrade their product, for the existing DICOM Compass Routers. DICOM router application software will provide high quality, effective, and efficient Information Technology (IT) services to those responsible for providing care to Veterans at the point-of-care, as well as throughout all the points of the Veterans’ health care in an effective and timely manner. Further, the acquisition of DICOM Application software will allow VA to retain the existing legacy Laurel Bridge Compass Router ruleset information, transition the connection to Cerner’s Vendor Neutral Archive, configure the Laurel Bridge compass routers to accept primary/secondary medical record number workflow, and emulate the existing Laurel Bridge Compass Router rules. As previously mentioned, since Laurel Bridge software is a proprietary product, only Laurel Bridge and its authorized resellers can provide the required software, updates, patches, fixes, etc.

Likewise, Laurel Bridge Router Application software is the only compatible perpetual software that is interoperable with VA’s existing operational Laurel Bridge Compass Routers that are currently installed and already in use at Clinical Imaging’s enterprise operations, VISN-wide. Additionally, the existing Laurel Bridge brand name software inventory includes 155 instances of the compass router used VISN-wide, primarily for image ingest. Failure to acquire Laurel Bridge DICOM router application software licenses, maintenance, and professional services support, would leave the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) without a way to proceed with the custodial transitions of VistA imaging for veteran’s health information. Utilizing any alternate brand to perform the required software and support functions would necessitate a complete replacement of the existing Laurel Bridge infrastructure. The alternative manufacturer’s platform would need to be implemented alongside the current radiology Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS) platform. This would result in updates and changes to existing monitoring workflows and radiology systems to support connections from any alternative source. Additionally, VA staff would have to implement and manage a separate DICOM imaging broker platform and integrate it to the native radiology PACS and VistA systems, which would require VA resources to map existing workflows specific to Laurel Bridge compass routers to those of another vendor. Furthermore, if the VA were to pursue a replacement solution, it would cause schedule delays which would include hundreds of man hours from VA staff as well as modality vendors for re-configurations and testing. Subsequently, a review of the VA Technical Reference model (TRM), indicates that TRM testing and approval would need to be completed before implementation. The delays and replacement would cost VA an estimated

Any new routing software solution would require testing, approvals and validation in the VA environment as well as potentially up to two years of additional reconfiguration at VA medical centers. It would require coordination with local radiology, Biomed, and system vendors to repoint the thousands of medical devices currently sending data through the existing DICOM routing software. These changes would incur substantial costs to OIT and VA Medical Centers for the validation, coordination, and man-hours required to reconfigure each modality to conform to a new system. This would ultimately become cost prohibitive to the Government.

Without this acquisition we increase the risks associated with image routing failures and/or delays that would directly impact the quality and timeliness of care for Veteran patients.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted, details of which are in Section 8 of this justification. This effort did not yield any additional sources that can meet the Government's requirements. However, it was determined that limited competition is available among resellers for this brand name requirement. In accordance with FAR 16.505(a)(4)(iii)(A)(1), this justification will be provided with the solicitation on the NASA SEWP V GWAC website for review by all prospective offerors. Furthermore, in accordance with FAR 5.301 and 16.505(b)(2) notice of award of this action will be synopsized on the sam.gov website within 14 days of award and this justification will be make publicly available.

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: The Government subject matter experts (SME) conducted market research between October 2024 – January 2025 timeframe for possible alternative solutions that meets the needs of the requirement. This included web searches, database queries and review of product categories, including NASA SEWP Manufacture Look-Up to determine if any product could provide the same level of functionality or compatibility with the existing system. Based upon the SME ‘s market research, no product, other than Laurel Bridge’s Compass Router was found that met the operational capability of the existing Compass Routers. Specifically, no product was found that could provide the required redundancy, fault tolerance or operational load balancing for VistA Imaging flow and route operations.

Additionally, VA networking Subject Matter Experts regularly review industry trade publications and conduct internet research to ascertain if any other brand name software is available. Both were assessed to be standalone systems that do not provide the required level of functionality required by the VA for this effort.

Further, market research was conducted by utilizing National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) V, Governmentwide Acquisition Contract (GWAC), Provider Lookup Tool to ascertain that brand name Laurel Bridge DICOM Router Application Software could be procured via potential SDVOSB vendors. Finally, the CS conducted market research in March 2025 by using the NASA SEWP V GWAC Provider Lookup tool to determine what vendors can meet the requirement. Based on this market research, the CS found three (3) SDVOSB authorized resellers that are capable of providing brand name Laurel Bridge Router Application Software, Maintenance and Professional Services therefore the requirements of VAAR Subpart 819.70 can be met. Consistent with Federal Acquisition

Regulation (FAR) 7.102(a)(4) and based on the market research efforts documented above, there is a reasonable expectation of receiving two or more competitive offers/quotes at a fair and reasonable price that offers the best value to the Government.

9. Other Facts: None.