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Contract Opportunity

THIS IS A Sources Sought Notice ONLY. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) intends to award a firm fixed price sole-source contract to Healtheway, Inc., for eHealth Exchange (eHX) Network on a sole source basis. However, VA is conducting market research to determine if there are other brands of software available to meet VA s requirements.

This notice is issued solely for information and planning purposes it does not constitute a Request for Quote (RFQ)/Invitation for Bid (IFB)/Request for Proposal (RFP) or a promise to issue an RFQ, IFB or RFP in the future. This notice does not commit the VA to contract for any supply or service. Further, the VA is not seeking quotes, bids or proposals at this time and will not accept unsolicited proposals in response to this source sought notice. The VA will not pay for any information or administrative costs incurred in response to this notice. Submittals will not be returned to the responder. Not responding to this notice does not preclude participation in any future RFQ or IFB or RFP, if any is issued. If a solicitation is released, it will be synopsized on the Governmentwide Point of Entry. It is the responsibility of potential offerors to monitor the Governmentwide Point of Entry for additional information pertaining to this requirement. The anticipated NAICS code is: 518210, Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services with a size standard of $40M.

VA currently uses eHealth Exchange (eHX) Network. The eHX is a network of exchange partners who securely share information with each other in accordance with a common trust agreement, with oversight by a network governing body, the eHX Coordinating Committee. Over time, the eHX network has evolved from a network that offered basic connectivity services to allow federal agencies to connect to private sector organizations, to a truly nationwide network with over 300 Participants exchanging an estimated 200,000,000 clinical documents annually. VHA is one of many Participants in the eHX network, which enables the VHA to exchange health information with providers, other federal agencies, and health information exchange partners irrespective of the technology platform or gateway software that the partners utilize.
Participating in the eHX network enables the VHA to utilize its gateway to exchange health records with private sector providers in support of the Veterans Health Information Exchange (VHIE) Program, the Veterans Choice Act, and the MISSION Act. eHX membership is also required for continued use of the eHX Hub a solution platform that allows one connection to access multiple partners. The Hub is an integrated piece of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) / Department of Defense (DoD) / United States Coast Guard (USCG) Joint Health Information Exchange (HIE) that went live on April 18, 2020. The eHX network enables nationwide connectivity that is based upon industry standards, supported by robust testing requirements, and testing process, and access to other health information exchange partners.

Below are the minimum requirements and salient characteristics. If interested and capable of providing an alternate solution, please provide a capabilities statement detailing the specific software and how it meets the full requirement. Please also provide a pricing estimate.

Email Responses by: March 29, 2024
Point of contact are:

Ms. Jennifer McCloud, Contract Specialist at Jennifer.McCloud@va.gov; phone (915) 564-6100 ext 2086
Mr. Juan C. Perez, contract specialist at e-mail address juan.perez5@VA.GOV; phone 512-981-4467.

Minimum Requirements:

The Contractor shall perform the following:

PARTICIPANT ACCESS (VHA)

Provide operational support:

Support eHX Coordinating Committee operations
Manage shared infrastructure (directory, certificate authority, Transport Layer Security (TLS))
Maintain and continue to improve the eHX testing and onboarding process
Maintain the eHX test requirements and specifications and facilitate the testing and onboarding process:

Provide for testing tools, test data sets and other resources used in testing process
Coordinate with Participant for specifications maintenance
Work with the Participant to streamline and accelerate partner testing process
Augment the testing program for clinical content

Eliminate point-to-point agreements among exchange partners by maintaining the trust agreement, called the Data Use and Reciprocal Support Agreement (DURSA).
Facilitate communications with Federal and private partners to set standards and interoperability specifications to ensure health information exchange across the eHX.
Collaborate with Federal and private partners to enhance the technical effectiveness and enable health information exchange across the eHX.
Build connectivity strategies to increase connectivity and transaction volumes for eHX Participants.
Work with the Coordinating Committee and Participants to develop and adopt new use cases or other enhancements to the eHX.
Collaborate with individual participants on content testing providing overall data quality approvements across the network.

HUB ACCESS (OIT)
Provide access to the eHX Hub:

Maintain single Application Programming Interface (API) to connect with the nation reducing information sharing expense and complexity
VHA connection with the Patient Unified Lookup System for Emergencies (PULSE) platform to facilitate patient care during disasters
A tangible solution to adhere to DURSA s Duty to Respond clause requiring eHX Participants to respond to any other Participant when querying for Treatment purposes
Provide access to a real-time reporting Hub Dashboard that shows granular and aggregated data on who is querying VHA, where clinicians are searching, success rates, response times, and other Participants uptime
Perform 24/7/365 monitoring of gateway connectivity and health
Maintain uptime at 99.99% (excluding scheduled down time)
Platform to facilitate capabilities such as use of Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) and geo-spatial querying
Platform to facilitate future potential capabilities such as Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA) Qualified Health Information Network (QHIN) participation and querying

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