SOURCES SOUGHT NOTICE_OCPS-DBH _CTE with Tribal Partners 4.09.26.pdf

Sources Sought Notice

Title: Client Technological Engagement (CTE) with Tribal Partners Agency: Indian Health Service Issue Date: Thursday, April 9, 2026 Due Date: Wednesday, April 15, 2026, no later than 5:00pm EST POCs: Responses must be submitted via email to daniel.poehling@ihs.gov. Include “CTE with Tribal

Partners – Your Company Name” in the Subject of the email.

This Sources Sought Notice (SSN) #75H70426Q00020 is for market research and planning purposes only and shall not be construed as a solicitation or an obligation or commitment to issue a solicitation by the Indian Health Service (IHS). This SSN is seeking information from the specific types of entities listed below to assess their capabilities in fulfilling the requirements set forth in this SSN. The information from this SSN will be used to determine the appropriate set-aside, if any, in accordance with the applicable regulations listed. The Government encourages the identified to respond to this Notice and will be assessed of their capabilities in the following priority:

1. Indian Small Business Economic Enterprise (ISBEE),

2. Indian Economic Enterprise’s (IEE) in accordance with HHSAR 326.603-1.

3. Small business concerns in accordance with FAR 19.502-2 (b)(1) & (2).

Responses to the information requested will assist the Government in determining the appropriate acquisition method, including whether any ISBEE/IEE or small business set-aside is possible based on the Contracting Officer’s reasonable expectation of obtaining offers from two or more relevant concerns that will be competitive in terms of market price, product quality, and delivery capability. An organization that is not considered an ISBEE/IEE firm or small business under the applicable NAICS code should NOT submit a response to this notice. The applicable primary NAICS code for this requirement is 513210 – Software Publishers. Generic capability statements are not sufficient and may not be considered when assessing entity capabilities.

Background

The Indian Health Service (IHS), an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services, is the principal federal health care provider and health advocate for American Indians and Alaska Natives (AI/AN), and its goal is to raise their health status to the highest possible level. IHS provides a comprehensive health service delivery system for approximately 2.3 million AI/AN who belong to 574 federally recognized tribes in the contiguous 48 states. IHS has 12 Area Offices and 10 Accounting Offices across the United States. These offices support the extensive health care delivery network and provide managerial, financial, and administrative support to IHS hospitals, clinics and health centers. All work under this contract shall be performed in direct support of the IHS Office of Clinical and Preventive Services (OCPS) Division of Behavioral Health (DBH) and Area Offices (including their respective facilities) within the IHS.

DBH serves as the primary source of national advocacy, policy development, management and administration of behavioral health, alcohol and substance abuse, and family violence prevention programs. Working in partnership with Tribes, Tribal organizations, and Urban Indian health organizations, DBH coordinates national efforts to share knowledge and build capacity through the development and implementation of evidence/practice based and cultural-based practices in Indian Country.

Tribal partners and the IHS require a data-driven digital ecosystem for high-impact, Tribal-directed, psychologically and aesthetically reinforcing, federal-interagency-coordinated methods in severe injury mitigation, including robust prevention of suicide, overdose, and human trafficking, among American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) persons, especially youth. Critical to such interventions is the rapid availability of robust, highly-adaptive, highly-efficient, data-accountable, component-based client technological engagement (CTE) among Tribal service entities, at the patient-level and system-level, including means of fostering self-care, emergency communications, interpersonal assistance, risk assessment, and skill development in self-care, employability, nutrition, and others.

Due to the sensitivity of the subject matter, including severe injury targets and victims, and Tribal sovereignty, the total CTE patient-level and system-level platforms must provide a robust scope of Tribal-directed, psychologically

Indian Health Service Rockville, MD 20857

Public Health Service DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES mailto:daniel.poehling@ihs.gov.

CTE with Tribal Partners and aesthetically reinforcing processes.

Scope of Required Capabilities

Respondents must demonstrate the ability to provide commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) CTE patient-level and system-level platforms that shall meet all the following minimum IHS requirements:

A. Patient-level CTE Platform

• A mobile-first Software as a Service (SaaS) application

• Designed for self-directed and co-managed workflows

• Equipped with journal, motivation, activity, and contact tools

• Featuring a points-based achievement system

• Supported by an administrative portal

• Built with robust and relevant Application Programming Interface (API) capabilities

Unique Patient-level CTE platform capabilities:

• Non-commercialized architecture

• Tribal-guided traditional medicine aesthetics and processes

• API interoperability

• Multi-entity configuration

• Crisis navigation

• Employability pathway development capacity

• Resilience and whole-person engagement, SKU-based procurement (prototyping, deploying, integrating)

B. System-level CTE Platform

• Secure authentication (including 30-day session configuration)

• Email verification workflows

• Deep content crawling

• Relevance filtering

• Role-based access

• Aggregated dashboards

• Secure knowledge indexing across Tribal-relevant systems

Unique System-level CTE platform capabilities:

• Centralized knowledge clearinghouse

• Tribal-guided traditional medicine aesthetics and processes

• Document ingestion and tagging

• Federated search capability

• National-level aggregated reporting

• Secure authentication

• Non-commercial architecture

• Tribal language options

C. Technical & Compliance Requirements

• Compliance with:

o Indian Health Care Improvement Act, P.L. 94-437, Section 1665a(b)(2) o Privacy Act of 1974 (5 U.S.C.552a) o OMB Circular No. A-130 including Personally Identifiable Information (PII) o FISMA o NIST SP 800-53 security controls o HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules o Section 508 / WCAG 2.0 AA accessibility standards

• Ability to support nationwide deployment across all federally operated IHS facilities

Submission Information

Interested vendors shall submit capabilities (no more than 10 pages) addressing the following:

1. Technical Capability o Description of existing and implementation of CTE patient-level and system-level platform(s)

2. Relevant Experience o Federal healthcare clients (IHS, VA, DoD, CMS preferred) o Length of time solution has been operational o Experience supporting enterprise-wide CTE patient-level and system-level platform operations

3. Security & Compliance o FISMA/NIST compliance approach o HIPAA safeguards o Section 508 conformance (VPAT availability)

4. Commercial Availability o Confirmation that services are commercially available o Pricing structure (high-level, non-binding)

Cover Page Please provide a cover page to include:

1. Company Name

2. Company Designation (ISBEE/IEE/SB)

3. Type of Business – as applicable (e.g. 8(a), Woman Owned Small Business, HUBZone, etc.)

4. UEI Number

5. Point of contact

6. Primary NAICS Code(s)

7. Existing federal contracting vehicle(s) numbers, as applicable (e.g. GSA MAS number, NITAAC/CIO SP3, etc.)

8. System for Award Management (SAM) registration status. Note, all respondents must be registered on the

SAM located at http://www.sam.gov/ prior to any potential award.

Past Performance

• Please provide any past performance information to support demonstration of your capabilities in the relevant technical areas and magnitude of work.

Other Information (Optional) You may include any other information that may be helpful in developing or finalizing the requirements of the potential acquisition.

Submission Format To assist the Government in an expeditious review of your capabilities, the capability statement should be organized as follows:

• Cover page

• Executive Summary

• Technical Areas in the order listed

• Past Performance

• Other Information, as applicable

The tailored capability statement should not exceed 10 pages excluding Past Performance information. Font must not be less than 10 point (for readability) and may be submitted in either in either Microsoft Word or Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) but must be a standard 8-1/2 by 11 inch in paper size. All proprietary information should be marked as such.

Generic capability statements are not sufficient and will not be considered compliant with the requirements of this notice.

Disclaimer and Important Notes This notice does not obligate the Government to award contract. Any information provided by industry to the Government as a result of this SSN is strictly voluntary. Responses will not be returned. No entitlements to payment of direct or indirect costs or charges to the Government will arise as a result of contractor submission of responses, or http://www.sam.gov/ the Government's use of such information or otherwise pay for the information provided in response. The Government reserves the right to use information provided by respondents for any purpose deemed necessary and legally appropriate. Any organization responding to this notice should ensure that its response is complete and sufficiently detailed to allow the Government to determine the organization’s capabilities to perform the work. Respondents are advised that the Government is under no obligation to acknowledge receipt of the information received or provide feedback to respondents with respect to any information submitted. After a review of the responses received, a pre-solicitation synopsis and solicitation may be published on a government GPE. However, responses to this Notice will not be considered adequate responses to any resultant solicitation.

Confidentiality. No classified, confidential, or sensitive information should be included in your response. The Government reserves the right to use any non-proprietary technical information in any resultant solicitation(s).

Thank you for your interest in IHS programs.