Ideas for Creating Mobile Applications for Veterans
Ideas for Creating Mobile Applications for Veterans
Request for Information
October 11, 2017
2
Ideas for Creating Mobile Applications for Veterans
Request for Information
October 11, 2017
Introduction:
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is requesting ideas and suggestions on how VA can incentivize industry to use its own intellectual capital and financial resources to develop popular and easy to use mobile applications for use by Veterans.
This is a Request for Information (RFI) only. Do not submit a Proposal. This notice is not to be construed as a commitment on the part of the Government to award a contract, nor does the Government intend to pay for any information submitted as a result of this request. The Government does not reimburse respondents for any costs associated with submission of the information being requested or, reimburse expenses incurred for responses to this RFI. The information provided may be used by VA in developing its acquisition strategy and any future efforts. Interested parties are responsible for adequately marking proprietary, restricted or competition sensitive information contained in their response. This is a request for information and does not obligate the Government in any way, nor does it commit the Government to any specific course of action.
Please provide your response as well as answers to the questions below to clearly explain how VA can incentivize industry to develop popular mobile applications for Veterans.
Submission Instructions: Please submit the below requested information by 4:00PM EST on October 25, 2017 via email to Jessica Adamitis at jessica.adamitis@va.gov and Juan Quinones at juan.quinones@va.gov. VA reserves the right to not respond to any, all, or select responses or materials submitted. If you experience any problems or have any questions concerning this announcement, please contact Jessica Adamitis at jessica.adamitis@va.gov.
General Company Information:
Include the following identification information
Company Name
Company Address
Point of contact name
Telephone number
Email address
Response and Questions:
Submit your creative ideas on how VA can incentivize industry to develop mobile applications.
Your response should also address the following questions below:
How do you suggest VA incentivize the largest pool of contractors possible to develop popular mobile applications? How could VA incentivize and reach contractors that have never worked in the Federal market? How could VA better partner with academia for such application development? What grant or other model would you recommend to engage such university-based start-up, innovation, or entrepreneurial communities?
Prior to investing resources to develop an application, how do you forecast the popularity of a mobile application? How would you publicize the existence of your app to Veterans to get them to download/use it? What are the key analytics incorporated into mobile applications that could be used to gauge user experiences throughout the lifecycle of the application?
How should VA select which mobile applications would be most popular among the many ideas that are received from industry? What non-traditional acquisition methods do you recommend for procuring mobile apps? What new payment models would you recommend to ensure companies or development teams deliver results with constant iteration?
Traditionally, the most popular and useful mobile applications for Veterans require integration and access with systems that contain VA sensitive (i.e. PII/PHI) information. How would you simultaneously support both ease of access (i.e. easy logon procedures) and access to sensitive information?B What do you consider the best mobile middleware products to securely link sensitive data from VA clinical and business systems with mobile applications?
As mobile applications need to follow a pattern of continuous release and improvement, what do you recommend as an acquisition approach to ensuring dedicated teams necessary to provide such application support while minimizing conflicting priorities across an enterprise mobile application portfolio?
What would your recommendation be on establishing a unified approach to human centered and user experience design to maintain consistency across an enterprise portfolio of mobile applications? How would you address the needs for consistent Section 508 compliance across the portfolio? What do you recommend as an approach to ensure both Veteran or provider end-user prototyping with iterative testing and feedback for such industry developed mobile applications?
Have you participated in prior VA mobile application development and what lessons learned do you have from that experience as it relates to the above? If you have not participated in VA mobile application development or if you have previously bid for such work and lost: what is your opinion of ongoing VA efforts, the efficiency and delivery of efforts to date, and how they can be improved?
The following URL contains demographic data specific to the Veteran population:
https://www.va.gov/vetdata/
Jessica.Adamitis@va.gov
jessica.adamitis@va.gov
