RECOMMENDED DATA STANDARDIZATION CONTRACT LANGUAGE FOR COMMERCIAL OFF-THE-SHELF (COTS) SOLUTIONS This contract language applies to Commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) as defined as MHSS functional software, not developmentatl tools such as PowerBuilder, Visual Basic or auxiliary utilities-oriented packages. The government intends to use international, industry, government, DOD, and MHSS standards to promote the efficient and unambiguous exchange of information with required government and commercial systems. In addition, the government must understand the meaning and context of the data being captured and processed to ensure a common understanding of the information. In order to ensure effective exchange of information, Congress mandated the use of metrics to measure progress toward information technology goals under Section 381 of the National Defense Information Technology Metric. One of the metrics is the number and percentage of DoD standard data elements that are used in migration systems (through the use of DoD standard data elements or mapping non-standard data to DoD standard data). This requirement applies to purchased COTS products that satisfy functional requirements of the identified migration system. To report this information, DoD Health Affairs must have a clear and documented definition of the meaning and context of the COTS functional data elements. Therefore, COTS vendors shall provide the following minimum information in the form of a data dictionary to DoD Health Affairs: the logical data element name, the definition that describes the meaning and the context of the data element in the system, the domain of the data elements (the allowable values), the data type, length and a unit of measure if applicable. Any data element acronym or abbreviation must be spelled out clearly in the definition. The vendor is required to submit this data dictionary using the MHSS Health Import Tool (HITool) which can be obtained from http://www.hirs.af.mil/. This tool ensures that Health Affairs has the necessary data element information in a useable format. In addition, the vendor is required to assist Health Affairs in reporting the metric described above. The Government is planning to include the following requirement in all future COTS procurements: "Prior to final agreement and purchase, the government requires the vendor to provide a data dictionary which includes the following information for each functional data element in the software: the logical data element name, the definition that describes the meaning and the context of the data element in the system, the domain of the data element (the allowable values), the data type, length and a unit of measure if applicable. The vendor is required to sumit this data dictionary using the MHSS Health Import Tool (HITool) which can be obtained from http://.www.hirs.af.mil/. In addition, the vendor will be required to provide additional information for clarification of the individual data element meaning and context to assist Health Affairs in reporting the National Defense Information Technology Metric." When the government requires a COTS product to share MHSS data with other information sytems, it is the responsibility of the purchasing organization to clearly specify the data standard that is required. These standards could include HL7; X12; DoD; MHSS; widely adopted industry, professional, and international standards; and/or other approval federal standards depending on the implementation strategies of the MHSS. Based on the specific requirement. MHSS purchased COTS products must be capable and flexible of importing and/or exporting the data to or from external sources through standardized interfaces or front-end or back-end translators or utilities. The time frame when the demonstration is required will be determined by the government Program Manager depending on risk. The Government is planning to include the following requirement in all future COTS procurements. "The vendor shall describe in its proposal to the government and be able to demonstrate within ____ days of final award the applications capability and flexibility to import and export applicable standard MHSS data defined in the task order to or from external sources directly or through standardized interfaces, front-end or back-end translators or utilities." The Government is interested in industry comment on the above requirements. Comments shoudl be addressed to marco.johnson@ha.osd.mil. E-MAIL: Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Health Affairs), marco.johnson@ha.osd.mil.

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