B537--Pre-Solicitation Notice with Intent to Sole Source Research and Development Subject Matter Expert Services

The Department of Veterans Affairs Veterans Health Administration (VHA), through its Regional Procurement Office East in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has published a Pre-Solicitation Notice announcing its intent to award a sole source contract to Harvard Medical School for Research and Development Subject Matter Expert Services. This notice, posted on February 23, 2026, informs the contracting community of the agency's plan to negotiate directly with Harvard Medical School rather than conduct a competitive procurement. The contract will support the VA-funded research study titled "Assessing Quality of VA and Community Care in the MISSION Era" and will be structured as a one-year base period with one option year. Harvard Medical School has been identified as the sole known vendor capable of providing the specialized services required for this engagement. The procurement authority cited is FAR 6.103-1, which permits sole source awards when only one responsible source exists to meet agency requirements.

The primary objective of this contract is to engage Harvard Medical School's subject matter experts to adapt and translate a proprietary set of claims-based measures that were originally developed by Harvard for use with Medicare data into formats compatible with VA data systems. These claims-based measure algorithms represent specialized intellectual property that is not available commercially or from any other known vendor. Any responsible contractor who believes they can provide equivalent services with comparable features is invited to submit a capability statement to the Contracting Officer, Shannon Hukriede, at shannon.hukriede@va.gov no later than February 26, 2026, at 11:00 AM Eastern Time. Capability statements must specifically detail how the proposed service meets the stated requirements, and responses must be submitted in writing as telephone responses will not be accepted. The applicable NAICS code is 541715 (Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences) with a 1,000 employee size standard, and the Product Service Code is B537 (Special Studies/Analysis-Medical/Health).