DHA starts the bidding for $300M tech deployment support contract

The Defense Health Agency has opened the window for industry to start working on and submitting bids in pursuit of a potential five-year, $300 million contract for technology deployment support services.

Under this multiple-award contract, companies will compete for task orders to help DHA roll out tech tools for use in health care delivery and operational medicine functions in hospital and field unit environments.

But industry has a short window to get proposals into DHA. Bids for the Defense Healthcare Management Systems Deployment Solutions contract are due no later than 12 p.m. Eastern time on April 15, DHA said in a Monday notice to release the final solicitation.

DHA is characterizing this contract as one that focuses on non-personal services such as site preparation, deployment, training, user adoption, change management and post-installation support.

DHA also set up the contract to support its functions in program management, deployment planning and execution, hardware delivery and connectivity, product connectivity and interface validation, user enablement, and data management and migration.

The agency is also apparently trying to take a proactive approach in regards to potential organizational conflict-of-interest concerns.

Bids must state whether permission is granted to allow these five companies access to proprietary information:

• Andrew Morgan Consulting
• Boston Consulting Group
• Greenlight Analytic
• Monterey Consultants
• Swing Tide

Work under the contract will support the Program Executive Office - Defense Healthcare Management Systems. This organization is responsible for delivering health IT solutions to the Defense Department, Veterans Affairs Department, Coast Guard, NATO and coalition partners, and other federal agencies.

DHA will not look at price as part of the evaluation and intends to select “each and all qualifying offerors” for a place on the contract, according to the solicitation.

Bidders will be subject to a two-folded challenge scenario as part of the first evaluation factor, where they will have to propose deployment plans for both an electronic health record and operational medicine tools.

The agency has set up the EHR scenario’s scope to cover one large accredited medical center located outside of the continental U.S. with 250 bids, two community hospitals with 125 beds each and five associated out-patient clinics.

DHA says these facilities are spread across multiple time zones with approximately 5,000 total users and 50,000 beneficiaries.

For the operational medicine scenario, DHA wants to see a plan for rapidly deploying to at least five sites or units in the European Command and Indo-Pacific Command regions of responsibilities.

The second evaluation factor centers on supply chain risk management, where bidders must outline how they plan to identify and mitigate risks associated with hardware and software.

The contract’s period of performance covers one initial base year and up to four individual option years.