SOLICITATION NOTICE
A -- Electronic Surveillance System for the Early Notification of Community-based Epidemics (ESSENCE) Operations and Maintenance Support for the CDC National Syndromic Surveillance Program (NSSP).
- Notice Date
- 8/19/2016
- Notice Type
- Cancellation
- NAICS
- 541711
— Research and Development in Biotechnology
- Contracting Office
- Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Procurement and Grants Office (Atlanta), 2920 Brandywine Road, Room 3000, Atlanta, Georgia, 30341-4146
- ZIP Code
- 30341-4146
- Solicitation Number
- 2016-N-17993
- Point of Contact
- Dinah K. McGruder,
- E-Mail Address
-
hsz5@cdc.gov
(hsz5@cdc.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- Introduction. This is a Full & Open Sources Sought notice. This is NOT a solicitation for proposals, proposal abstracts, or quotations. The purpose of this notice is to obtain information for market research to make appropriate acquisition decisions and to gain knowledge of potential qualified businesses. Your responses to the information requested will assist the Government in determining the appropriate acquisition method, including whether a set-aside is possible. Background. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC), Division of Health Informatics and Surveillance (DHIS), Information Systems Branch (ISB) is seeking contractor support to provide operations and maintenance support for the Electronic Surveillance System for the Early Notification of Community-based Epidemics (ESSENCE) in support of the National Syndromic Surveillance Program (NSSP). The NSSP promotes and advances development of a syndromic surveillance system for the timely exchange of syndromic data. These data are used to improve nationwide situational awareness and enhance responsiveness to hazardous events and disease outbreaks to protect America's health, safety, and security. NSSP functions through collaboration among individuals and organizations at local, state, and federal levels of public health; federal agencies including the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA); public health partner organizations; and hospitals and health professionals. The NSSP includes two components: 1) a Community of Practice in which participants collaborate to advance the science and practice of syndromic surveillance; and 2) the cloud-based BioSense Platform, a secure integrated electronic health information system with standardized analytic tools and processes. These tools enable users to rapidly collect, evaluate, share, and store syndromic surveillance data. By using the BioSense Platform, health officials can analyze syndromic data to improve their common awareness of health threats over time and across regional boundaries. The BioSense Platform provides health departments a common electronic platform for collecting, storing, and sharing syndromic surveillance data. Understanding and addressing the needs of the public health community who contribute data to the BioSense Platform is critical to NSSP's success. Feedback from users has pointed to limited functionality and capability as issues in the current BioSense 2.0 web application available on the BioSense Platform. User surveys conducted by stakeholder groups in 2012 and 2013 found that users need a more comprehensive syndromic surveillance system with additional analytical tools than what is currently provided in the BioSense 2.0 web application. Based upon the user survey results, CDC business requirements, and a 2015 user pilot study and evaluation of available systems and analytic tools, ESSENCE was identified as the primary syndromic surveillance system to replace the current BioSense 2.0 web application on the BioSense Platform. ESSENCE is a web-based syndromic surveillance system designed for the early detection of disease outbreaks, suspicious patterns of illness, and public health emergencies. ESSENCE collects, processes, and analyzes non-traditional data sources (i.e. chief complaints from hospital emergency departments, poison control center calls, over-the-counter pharmaceutical sales, etc.) to identify anomalous disease activity in a community. The data can be queried, analyzed, and visualized both temporally and spatially by the end user. The ESSENCE integration, including alpha and beta testing, into the BioSense Platform will be completed May 2016. Beginning June 2016, CDC expects to transition nine jurisdictions per month from BioSense 2.0 into ESSENCE. CDC's goal is to fully transition all fifty-four (54) NSSP participating jurisdictions into ESSENCE and discontinue the use of the BioSense 2.0 web application by the end of December 2016. This transition will meet users' needs and will help CDC to improve data quality, efficiency, and usefulness of the data collected as part of the NSSP. In support of this transition, CDC has identified a need to procure ongoing contractor maintenance support of ESSENCE that will be available on the BioSense Platform. Purpose and Objectives. The purpose of this project is to provide maintenance and support for ESSENCE, enhance ESSENCE to ingest, analyze, and visualize LabCorp data and other potential data sources, update training courses and update end-user documentation tools to ensure that jurisdictions can use the system effectively when they transition from the BioSense 2.0 web application to the ESSENCE application in the BioSense Platform by the end of December, 2016. Project Requirements. Briefly explain the methods and approaches for completing each task. Independent and not as an agent of the Government, the Contractor shall provide operational and maintenance support to CDC. The Contractor shall enhance ESSENCE to ingest, analyze, and visualize LabCorp data and other potential data sources. The Contractor must be capable of developing and delivering the following: • Updated end-user documentation materials within the ESSENCE software and available to users as downloadable (pdf) files • Updated online training • Operational and maintenance support • Processes for ESSENCE to ingest, analyze, and visualize LabCorp data and other potential data sources. C.4.1 Task Area 01: Operations and Maintenance C.4.1.1 The Contractor shall provide technical assistance, consultation, advice, and programming assistance to CDC as needed to keep ESSENCE running. C.4.2 Task Area 02: Enhancements C.4.1.2 The Contractor shall: a. Ingest, analyze, and visualize LabCorp data source. b. Ingest, analyze, and visualize other data sources. c. Develop/implement enhancements to the system based on the priorities from the COR and CDC staff 1.Specific enhancements will be discussed during weekly calls. d. Determine potential solutions and assist the COR and CDC staff to determine implementation strategies. C.4.3 Task Area 03: Admin Consultation and Documentation C.4.1.3 The Contractor shall: coordinate with the COR and CDC staff to: a. Provide System Consultation b. Train system administrators c. Develop any needed documentation to support the running of ESSENCE in the BioSense environment. NOTE:: This will include back-end aspects such as data ingestion processes and well as front-end aspects such as user administration. C.4.4 Task Area 04: Updated End-user Documentation C.4.1.4 The Contractor shall: a. Update the end-user documentation such as the user guide, navigation panes and help screens within the ESSENCE software application. b. Provide updated downloadable (pdf) end-user documentation tools such as Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), user guide, and quick reference guide. c. Update the tools in accordance with web usability best practices such as the use of clear concise language, step-by-step procedures, examples, illustrations and screenshots. d. Coordinate with the COR and CDC staff to post the downloadable documents on the designated CDC server(s) and CDC website(s) (e.g. syndromicsurveillance.org, CDC TRAIN). C.4.5 Task Area 05: Updated Online Training Course C.4.1.5 The Contractor shall: a. Update the course content and learning objectives for a self-paced online ESSENCE training course that provides instruction on using the ESSENCE application functions available on the BioSense Platform such as logging on, queries, saving work, time series, reports, importing from files, permissions, adding users, access controls, sharing data, and other content as required by CDC. b. Provide the updated ESSENCE training course content in accordance with e-learning best practices such as those on the CDC Learning Connection (http://www.cdc.gov/learning/quality/elearning-design.html). c. Coordinate with the COR and CDC staff to post the downloadable documents on the designated CDC server(s) and CDC website(s) (e.g. syndromicsurveillance.org, CDC TRAIN). Anticipated period of performance. The period of performance will be one year from date of award. Other Important Considerations. None Capability Statement/Information Sought. PAGE LIMIT 12 PAGES. Interested offerors should submit a capability statement specifically addressing the criteria listed below ONLY. Capability statements that address requirements other than what is identified below will not be reviewed. a. Your opinion about the difficulty and or feasibility of the potential requirement or proposed acquisition, possible solutions and approaches that may currently exist in the marketplace, and information regarding innovative ideas or concepts; b. Your staff expertise, including your availability, experience, formal training, and any other training; c. Your current in house capability and capacity to perform the work; d. Your prior completed projects of a similar nature; e. Your corporate experience and management capability. Provide any examples of prior completed Government contracts, reference, and other related information. Information Submission Instructions: Please include a cover page with the following business information. The cover page does not count against the page limit for the capability statement. a. DUNS Number: b. Organization Name and Address: c. Do you have a Government-approved accounting system? If so, please identify the agency that approved this system. d. Business Size and Type of Business (e. g., small business, 8(a), woman owned, veteran owned, etc.) pursuant to the applicable NAICS code. e. Technical point of contact including name, title, address, telephone number, and email address of the individual(s) who can verify the demonstrated capabilities identified in the response. f. Contract's point of contact including name, title, address, telephone number, and email address. g. In your opinion, can this work fit under a GSA Schedule? If so, which GSA Schedule? Please provide the schedule number. Page Limitation: Capability Statements shall be limited to EIGHT (8) (including references, appendices, charts, illustrations, diagrams, and or resumes) single-spaced pages including cover page. Pages shall be formatted as follows: MS Word, 8 ½ x 11, 12 pitch, Times New Roman font with one (1) inch margins. Response Due Date: Submit capability statements via email to Dinah K. McGruder, Contract Specialist at hsz5@cdc.gov. Should you have any questions concerning this sources sought, please direct your questions in writing to the Contracting Specialist Dinah K. McGruder at hsz5@cdc.gov. The government will not respond to oral questions. Responses must be submitted no later than 10:00 am, Eastern Standard Time (EST) by Friday Sept 2, 2016. Capability statements will NOT be accepted after the due date. No telephonic or facsimile responses will be accepted. The Government will not provide feedback on capability statements and we will not return capability statements received. Disclaimer and Important Notes. This notice does not obligate the Government to award a contract or otherwise pay for the information provided in response. The Government reserves the right to use information provided by respondents for any purpose deemed necessary and legally appropriate. Any organization responding to this notice should ensure that its response is complete and sufficiently detailed to allow the Government to determine the organization's qualifications to perform the work. Respondents are advised that the Government is under no obligation to acknowledge receipt of the information received or provide feedback to respondents with respect to any information submitted. After a review of the responses received, a pre-solicitation synopsis and solicitation may be published in Federal Business Opportunities. However, responses to this notice will not be considered adequate responses to a solicitation. Confidentiality. No proprietary, classified, confidential, or sensitive information should be included in your response. The Government reserves the right to use any non-proprietary technical information in any resultant solicitation(s).
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- SN04232224-W 20160821/160819234716-b51b26011eba6fb67ed14441dd7078f4 (fbodaily.com)
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