SOLICITATION NOTICE
R -- Patient Safety Organization Privacy Protection Center
- Notice Date
- 5/4/2007
- Notice Type
- Solicitation Notice
- NAICS
- 541990
— All Other Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services
- Contracting Office
- Department of Health and Human Services, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Contracts Management, 540 Gaither Road, Rockville, MD, 20850, UNITED STATES
- ZIP Code
- 00000
- Solicitation Number
- AHRQ-07-10032
- Archive Date
- 6/30/2007
- Description
- Patient Safety Organization Privacy Protection Center In response to the 2005 Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), will be soliciting proposals on a full and open competitive basis to establish a Patient Safety Organization Privacy Protection Center (PSOPPC). The PSOPPC will conduct technical assistance and patient safety event data de-identification services for listed Patient Safety Organizations (PSOs). AHRQ is seeking offerors which have the capability to create, operate, maintain, and enhance the PSOPPC. We anticipate one award for a period of 3 years, with two 1-year options. Options will be evaluated with the base period. Options may or may not be exercised based on performance of the contractor and the needs of the Government. The Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act established a framework through which hospitals, doctors, and other health care providers can work to improve health care quality in a protected legal environment. The Act extends legal privilege and confidentiality to health care providers voluntarily reporting patient safety events and ?close calls? to specially designated PSOs. In turn, PSOs collect and analyze patient safety data in a confidential manner to develop and implement patient safety improvement strategies. Additionally, the Act authorizes the Secretary of Health and Human Services to ?facilitate the creation of and maintain a network of patient safety databases that provides an interactive evidence-based management resource.? This network shall ?accept, aggregate across the network, and analyze non-identifiable patient safety work product voluntarily reported by patient safety organizations.? The Act also allows the Secretary to specify common formats for the reporting of patient safety information to the network and to provide technical assistance to PSOs. To facilitate the creation and operation of PSOs and minimize the reporting burden of PSOs contributing data to the Network of Patient Safety Databases (NPSD), AHRQ is evaluating the creation of a PSO PPC to offer technical assistance services to the PSOs, receive patient safety event information from PSOs and render this information non-identifiable. The PSOPPC will then transfer de-identified information to the NPSD. This announcement is for the PSO PPC. This solicitation is for the PSO Privacy Protection Center. A separate solicitation will be issued for the Network of Patient Safety Databases. The PSOPPC will have several areas of focus. Currently, there is not an operational PSOPPC; therefore, the first activity will center on establishing a PSOPPC and its associated activities. The PSOPPC will need to recruit PSOs to supply information, receive information from the PSOs, and provide the technical assistance to PSOs for sending data for de-identification. Patient safety work product submitted to PSOs is confidential and privileged. The PSOPPC will prepare this data to be sent to the NPSD in a de-identified manner for analysis. A central activity will be related to the creation and application of protocols for rendering patient safety events non-identifiable and will include reviewing source information, ensuring information is consistent with common formats, developing and applying rules for rendering information non-identifiable, and validating the de-identification process. Providing technical assistance to PSO will represent another key activity area for the PSOPPC. This technical assistance will include establishing systems to respond to technical assistance inquiries, conducting needs assessments for technical assistance services, delivering a wide spectrum on technical assistance services including: planning and conducting workgroups, coordinating discussion forums, arranging individual consultations, developing tools and educational briefings for PSO activities, and maintaining an inventory of resources for the PSOs to utilize when conducting their charter. Other key activities for the PSOPPC include planning, coordinating, and conducting a large annual meeting of the PSOs and the potential formation of ad hoc panels of expert for guidance on PSOPPC and NPSD activities. The PSOPPC will also collaborate with partners (both private and public), including other Federal and State patient safety programs and AHRQ programs, to promote activities that support the goals and charter of PSOs. The core team involved with operationalizing the PSOPPC will need several different skills sets and expertise representing the key activity areas. The team must have demonstrated experience and knowledge related to patient safety improvement programs, patient safety work product, and reporting systems, health services delivery innovations, and implementing quality improvement, and other patient safety related activities that support the goals and charter of PSOs. The team must have experience with the creation, maintenance and use of de-identified health care data, the secure handling of data files containing confidential and privileged personnel health information and the use of uniform data elements and standard configuration protocols for data analysis and reporting. Due to the nature of the activities of the PSOPPC, the receipt of confidential and privileged patient safety work product and event information, and the creation of de-identified data from personal and protected health information, the offeror will need to have a significant level of knowledge and experience with the relevant legal regulations, policies and protocols. Potential respondents to RFC should note that the separation of the functions of the PSOPPC and of the NPSD is intentional; the PSOPC will work with many different types of information supplied by PSOs while the NPSD will only handle standardized information that has been rendered non-identifiable. Hence, an organization can receive the contract for only one entity, the PSOPPC or the NPSD, but not both. Offerors may submit proposals for both projects, but would only be awarded one. The solicitation and any documents relating to this requirement will be only available by downloading from the Internet through www.fedbizopps.gov or through the AHRQ website at www.ahrq.gov. Potential offerors are responsible to monitor these sites for the release of the solicitation and any subsequent amendments. It is anticipated that the solicitation will be available for downloading on or about May 21, 2007.
- Record
- SN01287672-W 20070506/070504220336 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
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