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Synopsis- Notice of Intent to Sole Source Vertical Design, LLC The purpose of this synopsis is to announce the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Technology Acquisition Center intent to negotiate a ... Synopsis- Notice of Intent to Sole Source Vertical Design, LLC The purpose of this synopsis is to announce the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Technology Acquisition Center intent to negotiate a firm-fixed-price sole source contract with Vertical Design, LLC (Vertical), 1219 Derby Street, Berkeley, CA 94702 for continued support services of National Center for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (NCPTSD) mobile applications in accordance with FAR 6.302-1 Only One Responsible Source and No Other Supplies or Services Will Satisfy Agency Requirements . This procurement allows VA to continue to continue data capture for ongoing clinical trials and user experience studies. Additionally, this procurement will allow VA to expand NCPTSD s capability of delivering innovative, data-enabled interventions for PTSD, and increase the number of Veterans who can access these mobile applications from their personal devices. VA NCPTSD is responsible for creating training and educational products to support evidence-based care of Veterans with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and related problems, which can have a significant impact on Veterans quality of life. Most Veterans with PTSD do not access evidence-based treatments or mental health services due to a lack of available services, distance from clinics, or the stigma associated with mental health care. Additionally, pandemic-related changes in VA healthcare delivery have dramatically increased the rate of telehealth and remotely delivered services to Veterans across the VA system. Therefore, NCPTSD has developed mobile apps to overcome such barriers to care and these apps are now in widespread use across the VA health care system. The apps are designed to assist Veterans and their family members with understanding PTSD and related problems, tracking Veteran improvement over time, obtaining support and resources, and managing symptoms using a variety of brief relaxation/stress coping tools. NCPTSD has a portfolio of 32+ public-facing and research mobile apps including PTSD Coach, Mindfulness Coach, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBTi) Coach, COVID Coach, Couples Coach, mPRO and Prolonged Exposure Therapy (PE) Coach. Many of these are research-enabled mobile apps, and all of these apps are maintained by Vertical. These mobile apps run on iOS and Android OS and are capable of collecting (anonymized) usage data including session start time, stop time, duration, use of each major feature of the app, as well as user actions such as button presses, survey responses and selected options. This usage data is primarily used by NCPTSD to support ongoing clinical care and research trials including Mind-Stride, PTSD Coach +, Insomnia Coach, Mindfulness Coach, and PTSD Coach in Primary Care. Versions of the apps that do not collect usage data are also available for those users that would rather not share their usage data. The data collecting and non-data collecting versions of each mobile app are referred to as the research and public versions respectively. The Vertical SaaS solution is hosted in the Amazon GovCloud, by Vertical, and provides a number of features/capabilities. The SaaS and development framework facilitate the capture, transmission, storage, and analysis of usage data for multiple ongoing VA research studies and ensure that all data are collected completely anonymously. The SaaS consists of multiple databases used to store the usage data from thousands of Veteran users for analysis and includes a server component that provides a secure web-based and command-line interface. Both interfaces allow NCPTSD researchers to generate invitation codes. An invitation code is sent to a Veteran that has volunteered to take part in user experience testing. The Veteran downloads and installs the research version of the mobile app from Google Play or the Apple App Store, depending on the brand of smartphone. The Veteran then uses the invitation code to activate the mobile app. Once the mobile app is activated, the app leverages the Vertical developed framework to periodically structure and securely send usage data to the SaaS solution. The Vertical developed development framework is used to capture and securely send usage data from the app to the secure server. VA researchers then use either the SaaS web-based interface or command line tool to securely query the data and perform analysis. The command line interface is also used to integrate VA systems/applications with the SaaS, thereby allowing the VA system/applications to pull data directly from the SaaS without requiring manual intervention. Vertical currently maintains their developed SaaS solution and development framework, which supports all research version mobile apps. The SaaS solution currently contains and is actively collecting usage data from thousands of Veterans. Only Vertical can provide the required services, as it owns the proprietary rights to the cloud-hosted SaaS solution and the development framework necessary to provide the required support services to the mobile apps that exist within the SaaS solution. As part of its SaaS solution, Vertical developed a proprietary format for data transfer and storage of the research mobile apps. All VA NCPTSD mobile apps must be able to integrate and communicate within the existing Vertical SaaS solution and development framework in order to seamlessly capture, transmit, and store usage data. Due to proprietary nature of the SaaS software code, no other vendor has access to Vertical s proprietary source code and are therefore, unable to provide the required support services to the SaaS solution and the mobile apps integration with the SaaS solution. The source code is required to ensure the continued support services, hosting, maintenance, and integration services are properly configured and updates can be developed and deployed into the SaaS solution and fielded apps. Without the source code, it will be impossible to gain access to the coded structure, which is required to push the updates/upgrades to the Vertical SaaS solution and maintained mobile apps. Additionally, communications between the Contracting Officer and Vertical on June 3, 2023, confirmed that Vertical is the sole provider of the required services and has no authorized resellers. Vertical also confirmed that same day that Vertical owns the framework, the back-end customer code, and the back-end data and that another manufacturer cannot support their solution, nor is their proprietary source code is not available for sale. VA Requires uninterrupted access to all mobile app usage data, which is inclusive of all current, actively, and future collected data, by the Vertical SaaS solution. Any interruption to data access or the continued collection of usage data would severely impact a critical series of ongoing clinical care and research trials. Interruption of data would also result in clinical disruptions in care to digital versions of the VA s Safety Plan for Veterans at risk of suicide. The source code to the SaaS solution is unique and proprietary to Vertical. The use of another source would require a thorough analysis of the data coding, scripts, and relationships and intercommunications between the data itself, the mobile apps, and interfaces as to how the current framework and processes of the mobile apps and its data could translate and be compatible within a new solution. Such analysis would need to be to a specific solution as each solution would include its own proprietary code and have unique translation requirements. Transference to a new solution would then require a complete extraction of all data from the Vertical solution, which must be extracted in a manner that is transferable to another system and would not lose developed data relationships, a process that is not guaranteed to ensure all data would be transferable. This effort could not be performed without assistance from Vertical as such analysis and transference of data from their developed SaaS solution would require access and knowledge of Vertical s proprietary software code and how data integrations with the SaaS solution. No solicitation package will be issued. This notice of intent is NOT a request for competitive quotations. However, responses received by 06/26/2023 9:00 AM eastern daylight time will be considered.