The Veterans Health Administration is America’s largest integrated health care system, supported by approximately 300,000 employees providing care at 1,250 health care facilities, including 172 medical centers and 1,069 outpatient sites of care of varying complexity across the continuum, serving 9 million enrolled Veterans each year. VHA facilities are located in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, the U.S Virgin Islands, the Philippines, Guam and American Samoa and serve a diverse population of Veterans.
The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) recognizes the unique problems facing Veterans today. With Congressional and Presidential backing, the VHA has been provided the necessary support to complete an organizational transformation that enables VHA to provide seamless, high-quality, integrated, coordinated healthcare, anytime and anywhere.
A framework has been outlined for developing a clinically-integrated, community-supported, reliable system of healthcare focused on providing the highest-quality and safest outcomes — and restoring trust among Veterans and their families, employees, and anyone who counts on our healthcare system. The framework will be responsive to the broader trends affecting all of healthcare, including advances in information and communications technology. VHA employees have created a culture of service, and VHA must provide the right tools, processes and technologies to bolster its customer experiences; increase long-term satisfaction and pride in working for VHA; and maximize positive impacts on Veteran health and well-being.
The VHA Business Functional Framework 2.12 (fig. 1) provides a visualization of the breadth, scope and complexity of the health care and services delivery across the VHA continuum. It also identifies, elaborates and models the VHA business, providing a mechanism for linking the VHA organizations, strategies, applications, business processes, and other components in the business architecture, as it applies to the provision of healthcare services. All work performed under Integrated Healthcare Transformation must support a category/function under the functional framework to be within scope.
The Secretary of the VA established priorities to provide clarity and focus, ensure organizational improvements, and enable culture change. The Secretary’s priorities are responsive to the needs of the organization and Veteran population and can shift dependent on multiple factors but remain focused on providing efficient and effective services to our Nation’s Veterans. The current Secretary’s priorities: Customer Service, Access to Care, Electronic Health Record Modernization (EHRM), and Business Transformation, as well as the VHA Executive in Charge’s priorities: learning organization, modernization, and restore trust, drive the initiatives associated with transformation, as will priorities of successive leadership.
This acquisition will support the needs of all VHA program offices. This vehicle is a resource to support implementation and healthcare requirements at all levels of the VHA. The Office of Healthcare Transformation (OHT) will be the owner of this vehicle and key user. Currently OHT has 130 FTE, supports over 60 projects, including major transformational initiatives, in effort to best accomplish VHA’s mission and strategic goals, priorities, and initiatives. Much of this work is complex and agile and is best supported through the use of expert contractors who provide critical market-based healthcare industry skills that augment the internal activities of the VHA program offices. This acquisition includes three comprehensive Functional Categories and include numerous subordinate categories, any of which can be integrated into a single task order to reduce the risk to the Government and ensure complete solutions to complex programs. This acquisition will provide a vehicle for healthcare transformation and organizational change. Inherent to the transformation will be the need for a broad range of healthcare focused management and business services and solutions.
Task orders against this IDIQ will require contractor support for vast and complex healthcare programs and projects. The VHA healthcare is a complex integrated system that must transform in response to both the changing needs of the Veteran population and changes in the healthcare industry. These shifts create challenges and require collaboration (internal and external partnerships) as well as new and innovative approaches to healthcare and healthcare delivery. The programs and projects will require diverse healthcare operations knowledge and experience. As needs arise, subject matter expertise will be required to be rapidly available to provide national support under a potential task order including, but not limited to, the following areas: high reliability organization, electronic health records management, healthcare modernization and transformation (to include integration of artificial intelligence solutions and disruptive models), financial management business transformation in a healthcare setting, healthcare human resources (to include credentialing, privileging and licensing), healthcare regulatory compliance, healthcare analytics, mental health and suicide prevention, access to care, and population health.
The Veteran Integrated Team Agile Lead (VITAL) shall provide the services and labor categories necessary to fulfill the requirements of Functional Category I: Health System Transformation and Innovation and lead a VIT (Veteran Integrated Team) that is capable of fulfilling requirements from all three Functional Categories simultaneously. The VITAL shall ensure the seamless integration of multiple workstreams and functional areas within a task order. For each base contract the VIT must be fully mission capable, able to meet the requirements of the three Functional Categories, under the leadership of the VITAL. For each base contract and any subsequent task order awards, the contractor shall provide the contractor personnel, comprehensive management, materials, equipment, facilities, travel, supervision of contractor resources, and any required deliverables necessary to satisfy the healthcare requirement. The contractor shall perform the work in accordance with the resultant base contract, and any task order awards.
Due to the nature of transformation, the Government anticipates that many of the eventual Task Orders in the base period will contain Advisory and Assistance work. In accordance with 16.505(2)(c) Limitation on ordering period for task-order contracts for advisory and assistance services, the ordering period for Advisory and Assistance services shall not normally exceed five years; therefore, the Advisory and Assistance services are permitted during the 5-year base period. For the 5-year option period, all Advisory and Assistance services shall be at most incidental, unless an exemption exists under 16.505(2)(c).
Information technology development and administrative or clerical tasks which are not strictly incidental to the requirements are outside the scope of this contract.
