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This synopsis is hereby issued in accordance with FAR Part 5.203 and FAR 13 in response to the mandatory requirement for a 15-day notification. The purpose of this synopsis is to announce the Indian Health Service’s (IHS) intent to negotiate a Firm Fixed Price sole source contract with DigiCert, Inc. located at 2801 North Thanksgiving Way, Suite 500 Lehi, Utah for the renewal of expiring DigiCert x.509 certificates used for IHS Direct (Direct) secure messaging and the related maintenance and service fees.

The IHS Direct secure messaging service is a required component of the IHS Certified EHR (RPMS) Application suite. Without the renewal of these products and services that are required for the Direct email system, IHS will lose the ability to meet the interoperability requirements required to maintain the ONC 2015 Edition Certification due to failure to meet the Conditions of Certification maintenance provisions. This will result in IHS clinical facilities failure to meet the CMS requirements for using a certified electronic medical record system, and be subject to fines. IHS spent millions of dollars in software engineering, development, testing and certification testing to achieve this.

Only one (1) source DigiCert, Inc. is capable of fulfilling the Government’s requirement. The DigiCert certificates and fees are utilized for the IHS Direct secure messaging service. DigiCert certificates used for IHS Direct ensures the credibility of the IHS Direct domain for end-users. DigiCert is an accredited member of the DirectTrust trust bundle that can issue Federal Bridge Certification Authority (FBCA) cross-signed certificates. These certificates are used to facilitate secure healthcare only messaging in a secure confederation of healthcare organizations, only Digicert certificates are used for the exchange due to the stringent requirements for the domain and messaging certificates, those being EV SSL, Code Signing, and Organizational SSL certificates.

The total estimated cost of this service is $87,257.00 inclusive of one (1) base year period, and two (2) one year option periods.

THIS NOTICE IS NOT A REQUEST FOR COMPETITIVE PROPOSALS, however, interested firms may submit a capability statement in response to the above requirement with pricing information by December 10th, 2022@ 3:00 PM Eastern Time to Christopher McGucken, Contracting Officer, Phone: (202) 677-5373, Email: Christopher.McGucken@ihs.gov. A determination not to open competition based responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government.