SOLICITATION NOTICE
R -- SUPPORT FOR QUALITY INDICATORS IV
- Notice Date
- 2/4/2014
- Notice Type
- Presolicitation
- NAICS
- 541690
— Other Scientific and Technical Consulting Services
- Contracting Office
- Department of Health and Human Services, Program Support Center, Division of Acquisition Management, 12501 Ardennes Avenue, Suite 400, Rockville, Maryland, 20857, United States
- ZIP Code
- 20857
- Solicitation Number
- 14-233-PreSol-00087
- Archive Date
- 3/6/2014
- Point of Contact
- Anthony Foster, Phone: 301-443-3415
- E-Mail Address
-
anthony.foster@psc.hhs.gov
(anthony.foster@psc.hhs.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS); Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Center for Delivery, Organization and Markets (CDOM), through the Division of Acquisition Management, Strategic Acquisition Service, Program Support Center intends to issue a solicitation to support the next phase AHRQ Quality IndicatorsTM (QIs) project (2014-2019). The AHRQ QIs are a set of approximately 100 quality measures, based on hospital discharge data, organized into four modules. Specifically, the AHRQ QI modules are: • Prevention Quality Indictors (PQIs) or ambulatory care sensitive conditions that identify adult hospital admissions that evidence suggests could have been avoided, at least in part, through high-quality outpatient care. • Inpatient Quality Indicators (IQIs) reflect quality of care for adults inside hospitals and include: Inpatient mortality for medical conditions; inpatient mortality for surgical procedures; utilization of procedures for which there are questions of overuse, underuse, or misuse; and volume of procedures for which there is evidence that a higher volume of procedures maybe associated with lower mortality. • Patient Safety Indicators (PSIs) also reflect quality of care for adults inside hospitals, but focus on potentially avoidable complications and iatrogenic events. • Pediatric Quality Indicators (PDIs) both reflect quality of care for children below the age of 18 and neonates inside hospitals and identify potentially avoidable hospitalizations among children. The AHRQ QIs are used by many organizations for a variety of purposes. Researchers, quality improvement officers, hospital administrators and community health planners use AHRQ QIs to ask questions that provide initial feedback about clinical areas appropriate for further, more in-depth analysis. State hospital associations use the AHRQ QIs to do quick screens of hospital quality and primary care access. Hospitals and hospital systems nationwide use the AHRQ QIs in quality improvement initiatives where the QIs are used to identify a potential quality problem, interventions are put in place and the QIs are used to determine whether the intervention had an impact. In addition, some state hospital associations, state data associations, hospitals and hospital systems use AHRQ QIs to help them understand how their hospital(s) compares on various quality dimensions in relationship to other hospitals, the state, or national average. In addition to the examples above, the AHRQ QIs are currently being used in hospital-level public reporting programs in 32 states affecting more than three-fourths of the US population. The AHRQ QIs are included in My Own Network powered by AHRQ (MONAHRQ®) and on the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)' Hospital Compare website in 2011; have been included in the methodology used for U.S. News and World Reports ranking of the top 100 hospitals in the US; are part of the Leapfrog Safety Score, and Partnership for Patients; and are used by numerous hospitals and hospital systems in their quality improvement programs. The AHRQ QIs are supportive of several initiatives called for under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) Public Law 111-148, including activities related to Section 3001, Section 3008, and Section 10303. The AHRQ QI project is unique in that it provides publicly available measure specifications, technical documentation and software tools that calculate the AHRQ QI measures. This software (provided in both SAS and Windows) legally resides in the public domain and is available as a free download from the AHRQ QI website. It allows users to calculate QI measure results based on their own administrative data set using a standard desktop computer. Detailed descriptions of the project can be found at: www.qualityindicators.ahrq.hhs.gov. Objectives: AHRQ desires to ensure the continuity, timeliness, and accuracy of the core tasks of the AHRQ Quality Indicator program through 2019. AHRQ anticipates awarding a contract to a qualified business/organization to provide ongoing and comprehensive support and maintenance to the AHRQ QI program. The potential awardee will support AHRQ in achieving the following objectives: • Maintain scientific integrity of technical specifications and software for use in health care reform • Transition the AHRQ QIs to both an electronic health record (EHR) and ICD-10 environment, • Provide technical assistance to users (as described below) of the AHRQ QIs Project Requirements: The project will require a contractor to manage and coordinate staff in support of a broad range of measurement, software support and technical dissemination activities. Activities to be performed include, but are not limited to: • Implementing annual updates to the measure specifications, technical documentation and software code of the AHRQ QI measures and tools to reflect the latest changes in clinical coding systems and statistical methodology; • Disseminating standardized, transparent quality measures; • Disseminating software tools which facilitate consistent and accurate calculation of measures • Providing technical expertise to facilitate the use of the AHRQ QIs and tools by an expanded and diverse set of public and private users; • Support of the QI website and related activities; To successfully achieve these activities, it is expected that the potential awardee would have experience in and/or extensive knowledge of: • Maintaining and managing multiple, complex activities concurrently at the highest level of professional and scientific quality; • Managing subcontracts and consultants; • Developing systems for monitoring and maintaining secure and efficient computing environment (including programmer resources); • Writing user-friendly, technically accurate reports and documentation; • Producing electronic documentation; • Providing technical support and training in the use of the AHRQ QI measures and tools to users; • Using large administrative encounter-level datasets to update and test AHRQ QI measures; • Clinical coding systems such as CPT/HCPCS coding, ICD-9 and ICD-10 coding; • Applying the AHRQ Clinical Classification Software (CCS); • Applying diagnosis related groups grouper software (CMS DRG and AHRQ Comorbidity Software); • Applying severity adjustment software (APR DRGs); • Conducting complex SAS programming in support of risk adjustment modeling, composite weighting and other statistical analysis; • Developing, testing and maintaining complex software in SAS and Windows; Potential awardees must possess, or be able to obtain (in-house or through subcontracting/consulting arrangements) the staff and other resources needed to expeditiously carry out the different types of activities listed above. This opportunity will be available to all firms which have the capability to support the AHRQ QI Program 2014-2019. AHRQ will hold a Pre-Proposal Conference time and date to be determined, and addressed in the RFP. This solicitation is also in response to In the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, Title XIII of Division A and Title IV of Division B of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) (Pub. L. 111-5) which was enacted in 2009 to improve health care quality, safety, and efficiency through the promotion of Health Information Technology (HIT) and electronic health information exchange. Under HITECH, several AHRQ QIs are included in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) EHR incentive programs thereby necessitating retooling of the AHRQ measures and maintaining these measures in an EHR environment. In October 2014, ICD-10 will be the required coding standard by all programs supported within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). These overlapping requirements have significant impact on the AHRQ QI methodology and maintenance processes which need to be addressed concurrently. The anticipated contract will have a 12-month base period with four (4) 12-month option periods. The solicitation will be issued approximately 15 days after this synopsis is issued and will be made available electronically at this address: http://www.fedbizopps.gov. Only electronic copies of the solicitation will be available. Proposals will be due approximately 30 days after the solicitation is issued. Competition will be full and open, unrestricted under NAICS Code 541690 - $14 Million.
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