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Title: Implementation of Inpatient and Medical Benefit Pharmaceuticals Formulary Management in the Department of Defense RFI #: HT0011-19-RFI-0040 INPATIENT-CLINIC ADMINISTERED PHARMACEUTICALS FORMULA... Title: Implementation of Inpatient and Medical Benefit Pharmaceuticals Formulary Management in the Department of Defense RFI #: HT0011-19-RFI-0040 INPATIENT-CLINIC ADMINISTERED PHARMACEUTICALS FORMULARY MANAGEMENT Introduction: 1. This announcement constitutes a Request for Information (RFI). This announcement does not constitute a commitment, implied or otherwise that a solicitation will be issued. This is not a request for proposal (RFP) or an invitation for bids (IFB). 2. Please note that the collection of this requested information does not obligate the U.S. Government to incorporate any solicited comments nor does it obligate the Government to procure the services. Proprietary information should not be included in the RFI response. Responses to this RFI will not be returned. The Government is not liable to pay any costs associated with companies responding to this RFI. 3. All information received resulting from this RFI will be used by the Defense Health Agency (DHA) for acquisition planning and market research purposes only. However, your response may be releasable to the public under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). If you wish the DHA to consider any portion of your response as "confidential commercial information", you should clearly mark the portion as "confidential commercial information". 4. The Defense Health Agency (DHA), at its discretion, may request respondents to this RFI to elaborate on information in their written response. Respondents to this RFI will not be notified of any results derived from a review of the information provided. 5. The DHA invites all interested parties to submit a written response to this Request for Information (RFI). This RFI is issued for the sole purpose of conducting market research in accordance with the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 10. Background The DHA is the Department of Defense (DoD) organization responsible for managing the TRICARE health care benefits. This includes a world-class pharmacy benefit to all eligible beneficiaries through the integration of state of the art technologies to enhance patient safety, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness. The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2017, under Section 702 mandates that DHA will be responsible for establishing priorities for health care administration and management; policies, procedures, and direction for the provision of direct care at Military Treatment Facilities (MTFs). As part of the initiatives to implement this NDAA, DHA Pharmacy will have authority over pharmacy services enterprise-wide to include formulary management across both inpatient and outpatient settings. While DHA currently operates a robust formulary management process for outpatient settings via the Pharmacy Operations Division Formulary Management Branch, the focus of the current activity has centered on outpatient physician prescribed medications available via direct care, mail, and retail network. The new initiative will allow Formulary Management Branch to assess pharmaceutical agents that are considered part of the medical benefit for formulary consideration. Statement of Capability 1. The Government is interested in gaining insight on commercial best practices and developing requirements for the delivery of comprehensive formulary management specifically focusing on inpatient and medical benefit pharmaceuticals. As a result, the DHA is performing market research to ascertain interest, capabilities, and available solutions within the healthcare industry to address areas of defining the process, training, documentation, measuring and analyzing data, and promoting an inpatient and medical benefit pharmaceuticals formulary management program. While we are primarily interested in solutions to Direct Care settings, we would also be interested in solutions that may apply to Purchased Care settings as well, particularly those that have successful implementations across similar settings. Direct Care settings include those where health care is provided within the Military Health System clinics and medical centers, often referred to as a Military Treatment Facility (MTF). Purchased Care is health care provided outside the MTF by network and non-network providers. Typically this is via managed care support contractors at facilities in the civilian sector. Interested parties are asked to submit information which includes but is not limited to the following commercial best practices for the implementation: a. Elements of a formulary management program focused on medications administered in varied settings to include inpatient, procedural areas (e.g. same day surgery, endoscopy suite), clinic administered, and physician administered agents i. Describe the elements including the required resources ii. Describe how the elements are provided iii. Describe how often the elements are provided iv. Describe the value the elements provide b. Based on your capabilities, methods, and recommendations, please define the inpatient/clinic-administered pharmaceutical formulary management process and assessment of a successful process: i. describe characteristics or conditions of an inpatient/clinic-administered pharmaceutical formulary management program which are identified with a high degree of success or higher rate of failure; c. Describe your capability, methods and/or industry practice for training for current and future staff with emphasis on industry best practices for developing and maintaining a team to manage an inpatient/clinic-administered pharmaceutical formulary. d. Describe your capability or industry technologies for developing approaches to inpatient/clinic-administered pharmaceutical formulary management. Technology features should include, but is not limited to: i. Methods for identifying opportunities where formulary management tools could be used to: improve patient safety, encourage appropriate medication use, improve adherence, increase standardization within each facility and across all facilities, and decrease costs ii. Methods to effectively measure impact of programs; iii. Methods to improve access to pharmaceuticals and decrease administrative burden; iv. Methods to promote a uniform pharmacy benefit; v. Methods to reduce acquisition cost of drugs; and vi. Define parameters used to evaluate the success of the program at the humanistic, economic and system levels. e. Describe your capability and/or recommendations on methods to compare program results at the pharmacy, clinic, treatment facility, and enterprise-wide levels to nationally recognized metrics or other patient oriented outcomes that matter. f. Describe your capability and/or recommendations on methods to maximize acceptance of the program among clinical staff, particularly prescribers. g. Describe your capability and recommendations on the use of pharmacists in the inpatient or clinic setting and ensuring alignment with formulary management within that setting. h. Describe your approach to and/or considerations on program variations that are dependent on the various MTF and clinic types (large Medical Center versus a predominantly outpatient focused clinic), where the relevant service is rendered. i. Describe any other valuable features that should be included in the inpatient/clinic-administered pharmaceutical Formulary Management program from lessons learned during previous formulary management deployments and suggest data driven alternatives to established processes of formulary management. Information Submission Instructions: The Government encourages responses from interested parties who are capable of responding to the entire scope of the RFI, as well as interested parties who may have specific expertise in only limited areas of this RFI. Respondents are advised that the Government will not pay for any information or administrative costs incurred in response to this RFI. All costs associated with responding to this RFI will be solely at the responding party's expense. Proprietary information may be submitted; however, interested parties are responsible for adequately marking proprietary, restricted or competition sensitive information contained in their response. Proper restrictions shall be marked as such on each page. Only the Government will review this RFI. Interested qualified interested parties, small or large organization, should submit information for this request. The information should not to exceed fifteen (15) single side pages, using 12 point Arial font. An additional ten (10) pages of other materials (e.g., graphs, tables, figures) may be submitted. All responses should be submitted using PDF, HTML, MS Word or PowerPoint formats with subject "Inpatient-Clinic Administered Pharmaceuticals Formulary Management." Only electronic submissions will be accepted. Electronic files larger than 10 MB should be broken down into multiple files with no one (1) file exceeding 10 MB. Each electronic submission shall include: a) RFI number and "Inpatient-Clinic Administered Pharmaceuticals Formulary Management" in the subject line. b) If the submission includes more than one (1) electronic email, the file number and total files being submitted (e.g., File 1 of 4, File 2 of 4, etc.) in the subject line. c) A brief summary of the email's content, the vendor's name, and mailing address. All responses to the RFI must be submitted electronically (via e-mail) to: Lois Jones (lois.a.jones20.ctr@mail.mil), the Contract Analyst and a copy to Mr. Astley Davy (Astley.b.davy.civ@mail.mil), the Contracting Officer no later than 4:00 pm EST, on Tuesday, February 5, 2019. Receipt time will be determined by the recorded time of receipt in the Contracting Officer's email box. In the event submissions include multiple electronic files, all files must be received in the electronic mail box by the due date specified above to be considered timely. Include the following information with responses to this notice: 1. Response to Sources Sought Notice 2. Vendor's Company Name, Address, Contact Person Information; 3. Vendor's DUNS Number/CAGE Code; and 4. Business Size and Size Standard / Classification relative to North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) codes. If applicable, provide a list of all relevant Government-Wide Acquisition Contracts and Federal Supply Schedule contracts your firm previously held and/or currently holds. Please include the contract number and expiration date for each. Although providing a response to this RFI will not automatically include you in the acquisition process, declining to do so does not preclude your participation in any future RFP, if one is issued. If a solicitation is released, it will be on the Federal Business Opportunities (FedBizOpps) website: https://www.fbo.gov, and/or the GSA E-Commerce Central website:http://www.gsa.gov. It is the responsibility of the potential offerors to monitor these sites for additional information pertaining to this requirement.