SOURCES SOUGHT
R -- National Guideline Clearinghouse (NGC)/National Quality Measures Clearinghouse (NQMC)
- Notice Date
- 10/11/2012
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- NAICS
- 541990
— All Other Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services
- Contracting Office
- Department of Health and Human Services, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Contracts Management, 540 Gaither Road, Rockville, Maryland, 20850
- ZIP Code
- 20850
- Solicitation Number
- HHS-AHRQ-SBSS-13-003
- Point of Contact
- Erin B. Mills, Phone: 3014271169, Jessica Alderton, Phone: 301 427-1783
- E-Mail Address
-
Erin.Mills@ahrq.hhs.gov, jessica.alderton@ahrq.hhs.gov
(Erin.Mills@ahrq.hhs.gov, jessica.alderton@ahrq.hhs.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- This is a Small Business Sources Sought notice. This is NOT a solicitation for proposals, proposal abstracts, or quotations. The purpose of this notice is to obtain information regarding: (1) the availability and capability of qualified small business sources; (2) whether they are small businesses; HUBZone small businesses; service-disabled, veteran-owned small businesses; 8(a) small businesses; veteran-owned small businesses; woman-owned small businesses; or small disadvantaged businesses; and (3) their size classification relative to the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code for the proposed acquisition. Your responses to the information requested will assist the Government in determining the appropriate acquisition method, including whether a set-aside is possible. An organization that is not considered a small business under the applicable NAICS code should not submit a response to this notice. Background The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will be soliciting proposals for a contract to migrate, operate, maintain and enhance the AHRQ National Guideline Clearinghouse (NGC) and National Quality Measures Clearinghouse (NQMC) resources, http://www.guideline.gov/ and http://www.qualitymeasures.ahrq.gov/. The NGC and NQMC are Internet-based repositories for the collection, classification, and distribution of evidence-based clinical practice guideline and health care quality measures, measure sets, and related information. These repositories are searchable databases of catalogued and indexed evidence-based clinical practice guidelines and quality measures meeting explicit criteria, presented in a standardized fashion that facilitates comparisons and informed decision making. The goal of the NGC and the NQMC is to provide physicians, nurses, and other health professionals; health care providers; health plans; integrated delivery systems; purchasers and others an accessible mechanism for obtaining objective, detailed information on clinical practice guidelines and quality measures, respectively, and to further their dissemination, implementation and use in informed health care decision making. The NGC and NQMC will be also be addressing implementation of stricter inclusion criteria, thereby raising the evidence bar to assure that guidelines and measures represented in the Clearinghouses have been developed using more robust methodology. In addition, the NGC will be implementing the Institute of Medicine's recommendation that NGC indicate the extent to which guidelines adhere to the standards for developing trustworthy guidelines. Purpose and Objectives While there are IT components in this project, this is not an IT requirement. The project will be content-driven supported by information technology. The objectives of this solicitation are to:  Develop, publish, update and archive content for NGC and NQMC (including HHS Measure Inventory as applicable), meeting production and quality goals  Enhance content, presentation, and process, being responsive to shifts in landscape and user requirements  Provide timely technical assistance to NGC and NQMC users  Report on NGC and NQMC user experience  Support content and project management efforts with information technology in accordance with regulatory, process and change controls, and stated requirements  Maintain a modern software and hardware technical infrastructure  Manage the project effectively, efficiently, and in accordance with requirements Project requirements There are six major tasks for this project, each having specific requirements and deliverables: Task 1. Content - establish and maintain an editorial board; identify and process content; establish and apply AHRQ-approved inclusion criteria; establish a system to obtain, publish, update, and archive content; obtain copyright permissions from the owners of the guidelines and measures; establish and maintain a validated system to index and abstract guidelines and measures; respond to U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) drug advisories to assure patient safety; author and publish guideline syntheses (analyses of multiple guidelines on same topic). Task 2. Enhancements - for NGC, indicate extent to which guidelines adhere to the Institute of Medicine standards for trustworthiness; for NQMC, tighten the evidence inclusion criterion; for both, adhere to a change/configuration management plan. Task 3. Technical Assistance - provide assistance to users of NGC and NQMC through a variety of formats such as, timely and helpful email responses, frequently asked questions static pages, detailed help pages, and short video help tutorials. Task 4. Information Technology (IT) - design, develop, test, deploy, maintain and operate the NGC and NQMC technical infrastructure and Web site, including startup/transition requirements; technical requirements; database requirements; Web site Requirements; hardware requirements; hardware and software procurement; configuration and change management requirements; reporting requirements; documentation requirements; and security and privacy requirements. Task 5. Project Management - provide general management; assist AHRQ with the Customer Satisfaction Survey; schedule, prepare and plan meetings; use project management industry best practices; systems documentation; annual improvement briefs; monthly progress reports; annual work plans; annual reports; final report; close-out/transition plan; work with other Agency contractors and with Agency stakeholders. Task 6. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Measure Inventory - content requirements; technical assistance requirements; IT requirements; project management practices; and enhancements requirements for linking measures in the Inventory to the same measure found in other national databases (NQMC, United States Health Information Knowledgebase, National Quality Forum, etc), a web interface for content updating and submissions, and an implementation assessment of system-to-system data injection/extract, transform, load (ETL) process. Anticipated period of performance The anticipated period of performance is July 17, 2013 - July 16, 2014 with four (4), one (1) year option periods from July 17, 2014 - July 16, 2018. Capability Statement /Information Sought Interested qualified small business organizations should submit a tailored capability statement for this requirement, not to exceed 15 single-sided pages (including all attachments, resumes, charts, etc.), presented in single-space and using a 12-point font size minimum, that clearly details the ability to perform the aspects of the notice described above. Statements should include information regarding respondents': (a) staff expertise, including their availability, experience, and formal and other training; (b) current in-house capability and capacity to perform the work; (c) prior completed projects of similar nature; (d) corporate experience and management capability; and (e) examples of prior completed Government contracts, references, and other related information. Statements should also include an indication of current certified small business status; this indication should be clearly marked on the first page of your capability statement, as well as the eligible small business concern's name, point of contact, address and DUNS number. Team members will have experiences in evidence-based clinical care; systematic evidence reviews; health services research; health care policy; health care quality improvement; evidence-based quality measurement; disparities reduction; public reporting and accountability. Team members will be skilled at quantitative and qualitative research; data abstraction, content capture and natural language processing; indexing and tagging using Unified Medical Language System® (UMLS®) and other vocabularies; and systematic editorial processes and controls. In addition, some team members will have experiences in the IT life cycle and will be skilled at government database design/administration, government Web site development/design/deployment/maintenance, and obtaining system security certification and accreditation with an approval to operate in a short period of time. A PMI-certified Project Manager is required, as is an organization certified at level 2 of the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI). Information Submission Instructions All capability statements sent in response to this SMALL BUSINESS SOURCES SOUGHT notice must be submitted electronically (via email) to Erin Mills, Contract Specialist, at: erin.mills@ahrq.hhs.gov in Microsoft Word (MS) or Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) by Thursday, October 25, 2012 12:00 PM EST. All responses must be received by the specified due date and time in order to be considered. ANY RESPONSES RECEIVED AFTER THAT DATE AND TIME WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED. Disclaimer and Important Notes This notice does not obligate the Government to award a contract 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 qualifications 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 in Federal Business Opportunities. However, responses to this notice will not be considered adequate responses to a solicitation. Confidentiality No proprietary, 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.
- Web Link
-
FBO.gov Permalink
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- Record
- SN02912471-W 20121013/121011234314-ef009e53ae9bb0b537c5583771214fb5 (fbodaily.com)
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