Request for Information (RFI): Veterinary Electronic Health Record (VEHR)
Request for Information (RFI):
1. TITLE: Veterinary Electronic Health Record (VEHR) Request for Information (RFI)
2. INTRODUCTION: A current Government off the Shelf (GOTS) VEHR addresses the Military Health System (MHS) ability to optimize data capture, data management, data analysis and event reporting for the Department of Defense (DoD) Veterinary Service. The VEHR supports Force Health Protection (FHP) for the key areas of animal care, management and animal disease prevention and control. The VEHR is deployed as an Integrated, web-based Application accessible worldwide supporting 140+ veterinary treatment facilities, 5,450 working animals, and 541,000 patients across the DoD.
The VEHR provides an electronic health record as well as the practice management solution to schedule appointments, track and maintain pharmaceutical and supply inventories, real-time collection of money for patient encounters and transactions at time and location of visit, and financial management of monies collected for both working animals and privately owned animals.
The VEHR provides five (5) primary functions: an electronic medical record; scheduling; financial management; inventory management; and reporting capability.
3. AUTHORITY: The Defense Health Agency (DHA) Component Acquisition Executive J-4 is issuing this notice for the purpose of Market Research as required by the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 15.201 and FAR 10.002.
4. GENERAL INDUSTRY PARTNERSHIP NETWORK (IPN) PURPOSE: The DHA IPN Program, within the Component Acquisition Executive (CAE) (J-4) Directorate at the DHA, intends to use industry responses and communications from this notice as market research for subsequent acquisition strategies. DHA seeks information on availabilities, capabilities, and other pertinent marketplace data to strengthen the DHA’s understanding of the current and future marketplace to enhance its ability to obtain quality services economically and to efficiently and lawfully establish potential vendor source files, listings and capabilities. The DHA will not award any contracts under this notice.
5. DHA’S SPECIFIC DESCRIPTION OF PROBLEM & MARKET RESEARCH NEED:
5.1. VEHR program is a Department of Defense (DoD) Mission-Essential Acquisition Category III (ACAT III) Mission Assurance Category (MAC) III Program. The program addresses the MHS’s effort to optimize data capture, data management, data analysis, and event reporting for the Department of Defense Veterinary Service for animal care and management, as well as, for animal disease prevention and control in support of the Force Health Protection (FHP) mission. The program provides a complete practice management solution in addition to being a health record program.
5.2. The VEHR provides support for Defense Health Agency (DHA) Veterinary Service Branch (VSB) in its mission to provide veterinary services and maintain complete healthcare information for all Government Owned Animals (GOAs) and Privately-Owned Animals (POAs), with respect to all veterinary services within the Department of Defense (DoD). Inherent in this mission is providing health care and treatment of GOAs in operationally deployed environments and in garrison and the protection of the military community from zoonotic diseases from both GOAs and other animals. Additionally, the selected software application serves as the point-of-sale, financial and inventory management system for the Global Veterinary Medical Practice that manages the veterinary supplemental non-appropriated fund (NAF) mission for the DoD in support of GOAs and POAs.
5.3. The end state will be an MHS Cloud computing system with secure token authentication (i.e. Common Access Card or soft-cert equivalent) that is client operating system platform agnostic and maintains confidentiality, data integrity, and availability (CIA). Importantly, the solutions must provide the architectures to enable functional high availability (load balancing, clustering and failover).
5.4. The desired outcome will enable an intuitive experience, be clinician user-friendly, globally connected, operationally relevant and a secure system. This solution state will continually deliver the five (5) primary threshold functions (see above) and facilitate the efficient and timely capture of data under a centralized program structure.
6. INFORMATION, PRODUCTS AND OUTCOMES SOUGHT BY THE DHA:
DHA is seeking industry submissions, which include creative solutions to our proposed set of VEHR future-state capabilities. A successful submission:
6.1. Satisfies primary functions.
6.2. Integrates legacy electronic health record, data and informatics for utility within the new solution to a) Extract, Transform, and Load legacy data into new solution and b) Validate ingestion, inclusion, and integration of all legacy data.
6.3. Presents value driven AI/Data Analytics information and proven practices for a) The five VEHR Primary Functions (last paragraph Section 2. above), b) Service Management and c) Systems and Network performance.
6.4. Provides a Service Management solution for 24/7 TIER-ed support to include TIER IV 3rd party vendor engagement.
6.5. Provides a technological approach for delivering a new VEHR Cloud Application
6.6. Integrates technology into our current and future DHA platforms.
6.7. Ensures that Cybersecurity (CS) is fully integrated and meets the Risk Management Framework (RMF) guidelines, (or newer accreditation process), for the DHA.
6.8. Provides a hierarchical structure for management of operations.
6.9. Maximizes interoperability with MHS Systems as listed in Section 7.1 Programs / Systems of Record Joint Interoperability Record.
6.10. Continuously delivers an Agile Sprint methodologies based Development Life Cycle approach.
6.11. Presents both qualitative and quantitative Quality Assurance/Quality Control planning, methods, tools and solutions.
6.12. Demonstrates full understanding of contractors and their subcontractors to operate on and within relevant DHA networks. Suggest optimal staffing plans for a robust development and sustainment team, the interaction thereof with the government – to include their credentialing, positions of trust, and cybersecurity. To include any academic or scientific qualifications for the scope herein.
6.13. Provides suggested customer feedback methodologies to facilitate a continuous improvement program of services.
7. CAPABILITY AND FUNCTIONALITY SOUGHT BY THE DHA
Industry shall consider each of the minimum outcomes listed below when proposing a response. Should outcomes below seem unrealistic, then we kindly ask you to be as candid as possible to better match our desired end-state to achievable objectives. When possible, technical architecture diagrams are preferred.
7.1. Program / Systems of Record Joint Interoperability:
7.1.1. Interface with the Air Force (AF) Working Dog Management System (WDMS) to push, pull and query data in real-time.
7.1.2. Interface to support the data exchange of Lab information with commercial lab service providers (currently ANTECH Diagnostics Lab Services).
7.1.3. Interface to support data exchange from DoD Laboratories (currently the Joint Pathology Center (JPC) and the Food and Animal Diagnostic Laboratory (FADL)).
7.1.4. Telehealth, integrates remote healthcare services into the patient’s electronic record.
7.1.5. Zoonotics, provides connectivity to health surveillance and notifies of zoonotic disease health risks in a timely manner.
7.1.6. Pharmaceutical prescribing application(s) within the MHS.
7.1.7. Interface with the Army’s High Processing Computing Centers for animal disease surveillance with multiple components including Zoonoses, Infectious Disease, Non-infectious diseases, AMR Pathogens, Enterics, and Syndromic Surveillance.
7.2. Provides data to support the prevention and control of animal diseases and conditions that present a public health threat.
7.3. Store, retrieve and transmit the elements of a clinical encounter associated with the veterinary care for GOAs and POAs worldwide.
7.4. Maintain complete health care information to include treatment history and deployment status of all GOAs.
7.5. Maintain complete health care information for POAs.
7.6. Provides real-time tracking for collection of money for patient encounters and transactions at time and location of visit.
7.7. Tracks and maintains veterinary clinic inventory.
7.8. Captures veterinary patient history, examination notes, scheduling, billing, inventory, invoicing and processing.
7.9. Provides surveillance module for animal diseases and conditions that pose a public health threat to the military community.
7.10. Monitors zoonotic disease data for trends, to report events, and implement mitigation plans.
7.11. Ability to store and forward work data to mitigate lost network connectivity and prevent work stoppage.
7.12. Mobile devices, allows collection of critical point of care data and image artifacts via mobile devices at remote locations (i.e., horse stalls, dog kennels, etc.) with or without network connectivity.
7.13. Request and share patient medical documents with specialists from within and outside of the DoD.
7.14. Cohesive clinical workflows, including to the chosen Electronic Health Record (EHR).
7.14.1. Outline a/the baseline of primary care workflows.
7.14.2. Joint interface with system(s) or data sources for the purpose of exchanging common data, sharing situational awareness, or partnering to perform a single mission.
7.14.3. Integration with EHR and Imaging.
7.14.4. Cohesive clinical workflows.
7.14.5. Integration to scheduling at provider and patient locations / via virtual health visits.
7.14.6. Provides the practice management solution to schedule appointments, track and maintain pharmaceutical logistics support through supply inventories.
7.14.7. A financial management module that facilitates real-time collection of money for patient encounters and transactions at time and location of visit for monies collected for GOAs and POAs.
8. CONFIGURATION & TECHNICAL CONSIDERATIONS:
Industry and Industry Partners shall consider each of the minimum outcomes listed below when proposing a response. Should an outcomes below seem unrealistic, let us know that too. When possible, technical architecture diagrams are preferred.
8.1. Host, Application installed and maintained in a Government/.mil domain; The Non-classified Internet Protocol (IP) Router Network (NIPRNet).
8.2. High availability for Cloud platform, information confidentiality and data integrity.
8.3. Content and data protection.
8.4. Be fully compatible with HOT Disaster Recovery Continuity of Operations concept for full data integrity in real time failover state.
8.5. Support as a service (XaaS) architectures for infrastructure, hosting, software, platform and cybersecurity.
8.6. Software agnostic, integrated, web-based commercial off the shelf system Application accessible worldwide following the DoD standards, policies, and procedures.
8.7. Electronic, real-time enterprise wide veterinary health care record.
8.8. Upload and review images, video, audio and text.
8.9. Available on standard access devices via web-browser from the DHA Approved Software List (ASL); i.e. Chrome, Microsoft Edge, etc. (e.g. mobile, tablet, laptop, desktop, etc. = BYOD approach to hardware) Robust role-based security that includes transmission of PII.
8.10. Real-time bi-directional transmission of data.
8.11. Image Sharing.
8.11.1. Integration with existing imaging systems.
8.12. Training.
8.12.1. Present user training life cycles utilizing the latest learning management systems (LMS) approaches in addition to those outlined below.
8.12.2. Train-the-Trainer.
8.12.3. MHS would like to receive pre-assembled training materials in multiple modalities (e.g. e-learning, classroom training, etc.) for use by MHS training personnel.
8.13. EHR Integration.
8.13.1. Integration with MHS GENESIS (Cerner EHR).
8.13.2. Cohesive clinical workflows.
9. OTHER IMPORTANT CONSIDERATIONS:
9.1. Functionality must be scalable from pilot to MHS-wide rollout.
9.2. Consider plan for technology refresh throughout the life of the program.
9.3. Consider the ability to maintain data integrity.
9.4. Consider AI/Analytics on the horizon enabling life-cycle efficiencies to the accessibility, footprint, storage, structure, transfer, display and archiving of patient records (see Section 6.2).
9.5. Consider establishing multiple rate plans for time spent on the animals for Military, veterinary, and technician support.
9.6. Consider providing system administration and user support associated with software operation and maintenance using Agile Sprint methodologies for continuous improvement.
9.7. Consider ability to leverage AI/Big Data analysis for zoonotic disease and health surveillance.
9.8. Include any suggested change management strategies/solutions that will be used for the integration, adoption and usage of the platform as it is introduced.
9.9. Provide conditions for level of sustainment and support to include but not limited to remote troubleshooting and 24/7 availability (disaster recovery, hot site data transfer integrity and operability).
9.10. Release and Agile Sprint methodologies for iterative platform improvements
9.11. Include diagram and model information to outline the Physical, Logical, Network, Database, and Storage boundary of the recommended environment/solution to the Cloud Application.
9.12. Generalized infrastructure, hardware and software descriptions/diagrams to support the architecture and configuration presented within response.
10. THREE CARDINAL QUESTIONS:
Three cardinal questions this package is requested to specifically enunciate and illustrate, as descriptive windows, to the response spectrum.
10.1. Please provide one to three examples of projects with similar complexity, magnitude and size. Please include specifics for the Cloud Services and Support approaches within each thereof.
10.2. Provide a summary of the best practices that drive your value delivery; PMI, DEVOPS, Agile, etc.?
10.3. What is your experience in DoD Cybersecurity directives and issues?
11. DISCLAIMER AND IMPORTANT NOTES:
THIS NOTICE IS NOT A REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS. This notice constitutes solely a market research effort as described under FAR 10.002. This notice does not obligate the Government to award a potential contract or otherwise pay for the information provided in response. The Government may invite certain respondents to an in-person meeting as a follow-up to this RFI. The Government will not pay for expenses related to this in-person meeting.
The Government reserves the right to use results of the communications with industry for any purpose consistent with, and not otherwise prohibited by FAR Part 10. 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, in no case shall responses to this notice be considered either a response to a solicitation or a submission of an unsolicited proposal, as defined by FAR 2.101.
12. CONFIDENTIALITY:
No proprietary, classified, confidential, or sensitive information should be included in your response. Industry responses will be shared with DHA staff for the purpose of market research. The Government reserves the right to use any non-proprietary technical information in any resultant solicitation(s).
13. NEXT STEPS:
Submittals should be emailed to the Government’s IPN team on or before 1700 Hours EST on 18 November 2019.
All responses will be reviewed and assessed by DHA staff. Several vendors may subsequently be invited to present additional details regarding their submittals at an in-person meeting with the Government in August 2018. The POC sending your submission will be notified about this meeting via email. Vendor responses that fail to address the information sought will not be reviewed by the Government. We greatly appreciate your time and look forward to learning from the submission.
Each of the responses will be maintained by the DHA as a source of market research information and published on an internal SharePoint site.
14. RFI SUBMISSION STRUCTURE:
14.1. GENERAL RESPONSE GUIDANCE. All vendors are asked to provide responses using the following parameters for submission, file types, and response length:
14.1.1. All responses are to be in Microsoft WORD format and or as a PDF.
14.1.2. Models and diagrams in MS VISIO document and or as a PDF.
14.1.3. The responses shall be no longer than to 20 pages total.
14.2. The following information should be included in your response:
14.2.1. Company / team / solution ownership.
14.2.2. Contract and or Teaming strategy.
14.2.3. Business Type; NAICS, Hub Zone and Small/Large.
14.2.4. Facility for any cleared activities.
14.2.5. All forms of POC info; phone address, fax, mail designated POC.
14.3. Highlight or detail in a separate section responses regarding:
14.3.1. Resource staffing support that accounts for continuous improvement delivery using Agile Sprint methodologies.
14.3.2. Responses to the three cardinal questions posed in Section 10 above.
14.3.3. Physical and Logical models, workflows and solution diagrams.
14.3.4. Systems Description sections (as needed).
14.3.5. Resource staffing life-cycle by role.
14.3.6. Include proactive monitoring, after-hours, and tier support costs models.
14.3.7. Unrealistic technical capabilities or functional capability described the notice.
PRIMARY POINTS OF CONTACT: Submit RFI response and/or questions to the DHA IPN team at email: dha.ncr.acquisition.mbx.dha-ipn@mail.mil
Marco A. Cypert, Contracting Officer, Email marco.a.cypert.civ@mail.mil - Charles Wang, Contract Specialist, Phone (210) 221-8132, Email peichang.wang.civ@mail.mil
