Inactive

Minimum Data Set Request for Information This is a Request for Information (RFI) only. Do not submit a proposal. This RFI is for planning purposes only and shall not be considered an Invitation for Bi... Minimum Data Set Request for Information This is a Request for Information (RFI) only. Do not submit a proposal. This RFI is for planning purposes only and shall not be considered an Invitation for Bid, Request for Task Execution Plan, Request for Quotation or a Request for Proposal. Additionally, there is no obligation on the part of the Government to acquire any products or services described in this RFI. Your response to this RFI will be treated only as information for the Government to consider. You will not be entitled to payment for direct or indirect costs that you incur in responding to this RFI. This request does not constitute a solicitation for proposals or the authority to enter into negotiations to award a contract. No funds have been authorized, appropriated or received for this effort. The information provided may be used by the VA in developing its acquisition strategy. Interested parties are responsible for adequately marking proprietary, restricted or competition sensitive information contained in their response. The Government does not intend to pay for the information submitted in response to this RFI. Introduction The VA s Office of Information and Technology (OIT) on behalf of VHA Geriatrics and Extended Care (GEC) Program Office is conducting Market Research on how best to sustain or possibly replace the legacy VA Minimum Data Set (MDS) Government Off the Shelf (GOTS) software product that was developed jointly by VA and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) as an Interagency effort. VHA GEC empowers Veterans to rise above the challenges of aging, disability or serious illness. VHA GEC provides leadership, planning, and policy in support of the GEC mission to honor Veterans preferences for health, independence, and well-being in the face of aging, disability, or illness by advancing expertise, programs, and partnerships. VHA GEC manages the VA Community Living Centers Program (formerly known as VA Nursing Home Care Units) which provides compassionate care to eligible veterans with sufficient functional impairment. Veterans with chronic stable conditions including dementia, those requiring rehabilitation or short-term specialized services such as respite or intravenous therapy, or those who need comfort and care at the end of life are served in the VA Community Living Centers. A Community Living Center (CLC) is a VA Nursing Home. Veterans may stay for a short time or, in rare instances, for the rest of their life. It is a place where Veterans can receive nursing home level of care, which includes help with activities of daily living and skilled nursing and medical care. There are 135 Community Living Centers across the country. All VA CLC s are required to submit MDS s to VA s Legacy MDS data repository in the Austin Information Technology Center (AITC) for analysis by the VHA GEC National Program Office staff. VA also formally recognizes and certifies 165 State Veterans Home (SVH) facilities, which provide nursing home, domiciliary or adult day care to Veterans. These State Veterans Homes are surveyed each year to make sure they continue to meet VA standards. VA does not manage State Veterans Homes, they are owned, operated and managed by state governments. They date back to the post-Civil War era when many states created them to provide shelter to disabled and homeless Veterans. All VA contracted SVH s are required to submit MDS to VA s Legacy MDS data repository in the AITC for analysis by the VHA GEC National Program Office staff. VA s Legacy MDS serves as a repository of the standardized patient assessments for VHA's Community Living Centers (CLCs) and State Veterans Homes' nursing homes. The standardized assessments, which are referred to as MDS by health care associates are completed in applications external to the Minimum Data Set Repository, per Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) requirements for the SVHs and VHA's recommendations for CLCs. These assessments are then uploaded by the repository users via the MDS repository website. The MDS repository is then used to perform comprehensive reporting and to allow comparative review of care. In October 2023 CMS will migrate off of its old platform (architecturally similar to VA s Legacy MDS) and onto a new platform (incompatible with VA s Legacy MDS) and as such CMS will no longer provide VA with necessary PL/SQL source code drops from their legacy system. PL/SQL source code updates are absolutely essential to keep the VA s Legacy MDS system up to date with CMS mandated changes to the clinical standards of care for all nursing homes and for VHA Congressionally required reporting. Beginning in October 2023 VA will be required to independently perform all software development source code changes necessary by interpreting the published CMS National Standards and implementing any and all changes in the source code. Therefore a COTS replacement is being considered using an Analysis of Alternatives approach to ensure no loss of key MDS functionality that could result in mission failure for VHA s GEC Veteran s Nursing Home/Community Living Center and State Veterans Home functional community. Any prospective COTS products shall stay current with all of the normative published CMS Standards as they evolve, esp. MDS 3.0 Quality Measures USER S MANUAL (v15.0), Effective January 1, 2022; Long-Term Care Facility Resident Assessment Instrument 3.0 User s Manual, Version 1.17.1 October 2019, Resident Assessment Instrument (RAI) Item Sets, Patient Driven Payment Model (PDPM) and/or Resource Utilization Group, Version IV (RUG-IV). Additionally the COTS product should be customizable, able to interface with the CMS iQIES, act as a data repository, able to store 10+ years of VA legacy MDS data, ability to obtain VA ATO comply with FISMA & FEDRAMP/NIST 800-53, able to integrate with VA IAM SSOi PIV Card authentication and authorization. In addition to the QM which are defined by CMS, VA uses various reports of their own, centered around RUG scores. These are not formally defined, as far as I know, in private sector, or by CMS. Could use some wording asking about "Does your product have capability of creating various recurring RUG reports and ad hoc RUG reports and views?" The current VA MDS is utilized as an Executive and Enterprise data aggregation/consolidation and reporting tool for use by VHA management hierarchy at all levels including VISN, Region and GEC National Program Offices. While the implementation of the Cerner Electronic Health Record (EHR) solution that VA is currently undertaking includes Geriatric and Extended Care capability, the purpose of this Request for Information (RFI) is to determine the availability and capability of existing potential COTS interim solution(s) that may be able to provide MDS capability through at least FY 2028 for the legacy VistA EHR sites, and potentially longer if Cerner implementation is delayed. VA is still in its preliminary Market Research stage at this time. 2. Submittal Information: All responsible sources may submit a response in accordance with the below information. There is a page limitation for this RFI of 10 pages. The Government will not review any other information or attachments included, that are in excess of the 10-page limit. NO MARKETING MATERIALS ARE ALLOWED AS PART OF THIS RFI. Generic capability statements will not be accepted or reviewed. Your response must address capabilities specific to the services required and must include the following: Interested Vendors shall at a minimum, provide the following information in the initial paragraph of the submission: Name of Company Address Point of Contact Phone Number Fax Number Email address Company Business Size and Status For VOSB and SDVOSBs, proof of verification in VIP and/or verification of self-certification via the SBA VetCert page. NAICS code(s) Socioeconomic data Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS) Number Existing Contractual Vehicles (GWAC, FSS, or MAC) Provide a summary of your capability to meet the requirements for the following areas: Does your COTS product offer a secure web based uploading of an externally generated MDS to the your COTS DB/repository? If so, does your COTS product perform verification and validation checks of the uploaded MDS file to your COTS DB/repository? Does your COTS product produce all reports specified in the following CMS manuals: Long-Term Care Facility Resident Assessment Instrument 3.0 User s Manual, Version 1.17.1 October 2019 MDS 3.0 Quality Measures USER S MANUAL (v15.0), Effective January 1, 2022 Does your COTS product allow for multi facility MDS data aggregation for executive enterprise reporting? If so, how many facilities data can be queried at a time? VA Technical Reference Model (TRM)/Similar VA Solution Does your COTS product currently exist within VA? If so, where? Does it have TRM approval? If not, is TRM approval in process? Laws, Regulations and Policies (LRP) s, National Standards & Industry Trends Is your COTS product up to date with all of the most recent published CMS standards, including: Long-Term Care Facility Resident Assessment Instrument 3.0 User s Manual, Version 1.17.1 October 2019 MDS 3.0 Quality Measures USER S MANUAL (v15.0), Effective January 1, 2022 How often is your COTS product updated/upgraded? Do these updates/upgrades come at a cost to the customers? Integration / Dependencies Does your COTS product interface with the CMS Internet Quality Improvement and Evaluation System (iQIES) for MDS submissions to CMS? Does your COTS product integrate/interface with the major EHR s on the Market? Does your COTS product allow for uploading of externally produced (imported) MDS s? Does your COTS product allow for aggregation, querying and reporting of multi facility MDS s to allow Enterprise reporting? If you responded Yes does that include externally produced (imported) MDS s? If so, how many facilities data can be queried at a time? Data Management Does your COTS product allow for the migration of historical and/or archived data? Can this migrated data be retrieved and queried according to legacy CMS guidelines and standards? Data Exchange/Communication - Does your COTS product implement CMS updates in accordance with CMS' schedule? Security Does your COTS product have, and or comply with FedRAMP certification? Is it being pursued/completed and if so at what level (high, medium, low)? Please describe your Information Assurance Cybersecurity compliance with NIST Risk Management Framework and Continuous Monitoring. Customer requested Enhancements Do you allow customers to suggest enhancements to your products without customizing off of the commercially available baseline? Do you charge extra for customer requested enhancements? Licensing Structure Please describe how your product is currently structured and offered, in sufficient detail. For instance, are licenses offered as Perpetual or subscription based, is the structure based on named Users or Concurrent User type, enterprise-wide products. Provide feedback on what licensing structure would be most economical and efficient for VA? Describe your commercial maintenance and support agreements along with your commercial incident response and incident resolution SLA s. Please describe your products capability to make modification to baseline data, such as facility set or changes to existing groupings or definitions for data extracts. Would an authorized client be able to access user management interfaces? Describe your products capability of meeting VA Security and Identity Access Management requirements, such as two-factor authentication. Corporate experience or expertise in performing these services and specific examples or references. Specific examples or references provided must include the agency, point of contact, dollar value, and contract number. Has this RFI provided sufficient detail to describe the technical requirements that encompass the software development and production operations support services to be performed under this effort. ______ YES _______ NO (if No, answer question e) If NO , please provide your technical comments/recommendations on elements of the RFI that may contribute to a more accurate proposal submission and efficient, cost-effective effort. Responses are due no later than 1:00 PM (EST), February 22, 2023 via email to Eleanor Slocum, Contract Specialist at Eleanor.slocum@va.gov and Michael Weckesser, Contracting Officer at michael.weckesser@va.gov . Generic capability statements that do not address the specific requirements shall not be considered as responsive. Please note Minimum Data Set Request for Information-36C10B23Q0143 in the subject line of your response. Mark your response as Proprietary Information if the information is considered business sensitive. The email file size shall not exceed 5 MB.