7A21--Distiller SR Renewal

Regional Procurement Office (RPO) - East intends to negotiate on a sole source basis with Evidence Partners, Inc., 505 March Road, Suite 450, Ottawa, Ontario K2K 3A4, Canada, to purchase Distiller SR services to support critical steps in the conduct and reporting of systematic reviews performed by the Minneapolis VA Evidence Synthesis Program (ESP). This is a request for renewal/follow-on services.

STATEMENT OF NEED

1. TITLE OF PROJECT

Services to support conduct and reporting of systematic reviews

2. BACKGROUND

Contractor shall provide online services to support critical steps in the conduct and reporting of systematic reviews performed by the Minneapolis VA Evidence Synthesis Program (ESP). Key steps and tasks aided by contractor services will include: 1) tracking and management of references through citation/abstract screening and full-text review; 2) tailored collection of data on application of inclusion/exclusion criteria; 3) customized quality ratings and abstraction of included study results; 4) tailored export of included study data for synthesis and reporting; and 5) analytics to support consistency and agreement of reviewer decisions across all stages. No human subjects or VA data will be used in work involving this contractor.

3. REQUIRED EXPERIENCE/QUALIFICATIONS:

Contractor shall have expertise in developing and maintaining online tools to support steps in the conduct of systematic reviews, as described above. Contractor shall have experience in training and technically supporting reviewers and staff who use contractor services.

4. SPECIFIC TASKS:

Contractor services will support and enhance the following tasks:

Combining citation search results from multiple databases and removing duplicates

Customization and refining of inclusion and exclusion criteria

Citation and abstraction screening across multiple platforms, including computers and various mobile devices

Full-text review and collection of data on inclusion/exclusion decisions

Customization of quality rating and data abstraction fields

Resolution of conflicts in inclusion/exclusion decisions and quality ratings between reviewers

Consistent abstraction of study results using structured fields

Synthesis and analysis of abstracted results for preparation of reports

Training of new reviewers and monitoring of reviewer performance at each stage

Maintaining databases of citation results and published papers, for future project updates and/or publications by ESP team

This notice of intent is not a request for competitive proposals. Any responsible sources who wish to identify their interest and capability to provide this equipment or equipment that is compatible must notify this Contracting Officer at Millicent.Covert@va.gov NLT Wednesday, November 17, 2021 by 11:59 AM EST. Telephone responses will not be accepted. Upon receipt of the interested parties' notification, the Contracting Officer will determine whether to conduct a competitive procurement or proceed with sole source negotiations.