Special Notice: Ambient Scribe Sole Sources

NOTICE OF THE INTENT TO SOLE SOURCE:
This notice is prepared in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 5.2, Synopses of Proposed Contract Actions. This announcement constitutes the only notice and synopsis of the proposed action.
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Strategic Acquisition Center, on behalf of the Veterans Health Administration, Digital Health Office, intends to award firm fixed priced contracts, within 60 days of this notice, to Carahsoft Technology Corp. UEI: DT8KJHZXVJH5 and Abridge Al, Inc. UEI: FVCYXMZGBH93, winners of the “AI Tech Sprint for Documenting VA Clinical Encounters and Integrating Community Care Data” challenge. The challenge was a rigorous and competitive evaluation process authorized under the America COMPETES Act and aligned with the directives of Executive Order 14110. (Track One: Ambient Dictation for Clinical Encounter Notes). See challenge link for details: https://www.challenge.gov/?challenge=ai-tech-sprint-for-documenting-va-clinical-encounters-and-integrating-community-care-data
The challenge notified all interested parties that winners may receive sole source contracts to implement the pilot programs for test and evaluation in live VA environments. These resultant contracts will deliver commercial, cloud-based, ambient scribe tools, which utilizes Artificial Intelligence techniques and technologies, and Software as a Service tool, to transcribe clinical encounters and generate notes. The program will integrate with the VA Electronic Health Record and workflows such that providers can initiate encounter recording without manual entry of patient identifying information, and draft notes can be automatically inserted into the electronic health record without copy and paste manual effort.
The proposed procurement is for products for which the Government intends to solicit
and negotiate with only one source under the authority of 41 USC §3204(a)(1),
U.S.C.3304(a)(1) as implemented by the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 13.5, “Sole Source Justification Under Simplified Procedures for Certain Commercial Items.”
The North American Industry Classification System code (NAICS) for this requirement is
541715.
All responsible sources that feel they should be considered qualified to provide the above-mentioned products may submit a response to this notice to William.Milline@va.gov or Cristine.Carmody@va.gov no later than May 16, 2025.
The information provided shall include detailed (and relevant) documentation to allow
the government to perform adequate market research and make a proper
determination. A determination by the government not to compete this proposed
requirement based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the
Government. Information received will be considered solely for the purpose of
determining whether to conduct a competitive procurement.
THIS IS NOT A REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS. THE GOVERNMENT IS NOT
RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY COSTS ASSOCIATED WITH RESPONDING TO THIS
NOTICE.