SOURCES SOUGHT
R -- NIMH Information Support Services Contract
- Notice Date
- 9/4/2012
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- NAICS
- 561422
— Telemarketing Bureaus and Other Contact Centers
- Contracting Office
- Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Mental Health, Contracts Management Branch, 6001 Executive Blvd, Rm 8154, MSC 9661, Bethesda, Maryland, 20892-9661
- ZIP Code
- 20892-9661
- Solicitation Number
- HHS-NIH-DA-SBSS-13-035
- Archive Date
- 10/10/2012
- Point of Contact
- Bruce E. Anderson, Phone: 301-443-2234, Stephanie Powell, Phone: (301) 443-6162
- E-Mail Address
-
banderso@mail.nih.gov, spowel1@nida.nih.gov
(banderso@mail.nih.gov, spowel1@nida.nih.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- This is a Small Business Sources Sought notice. This is NOT a solicitation for proposals, proposal abstracts, or quotations. The purpose of this notice is to obtain information regarding: (1) the availability and capability of qualified small business sources; (2) the classification/ type of small business (e.g., whether they are small businesses, 8(a) small businesses, HubZone small businesses, service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses, veteran-owned small business, economically disadvantaged women-owned small business (EDWOSB) or women-owned small business (WOSB)) and (3) their size classification relative to the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code for the proposed acquisition. Your responses to the information requested will assist the Government in determining the appropriate acquisition method, including whether a set-aside is possible. An organization that is not considered a small business under the applicable NAICS code should not submit a response to this notice. Teaming and partnering arrangements among small businesses is encouraged. A. Background The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is seeking information on all small businesses capable of providing continued services for the NIMH Information Support Services Contract. The nexus of this contract is NIMH’s Information Resource Center (IRC), the primary medium for two-way communication between the public and NIMH on mental health issues. The IRC is the central point in NIMH where customer contact is maintained through a variety of channels including telephone, email, chat, fax, and text telephones (TTY), as well as web and mail. NIMH’s IRC responds to inquiries across all these channels with standard and custom responses. A standard response typically requires referral information, directing inquiries to resources on the NIMH or other approved websites, or sending printed information. Custom responses require additional research to respond to the inquiry appropriately. The IRC must have capability to respond in English and Spanish and other languages as requested across all channels. Services for graphic design and publications, website development and maintenance, and public health message development are also part of the requirement. B. Purpose and Objectives The primary purpose and objectives of this contract are to: 1. Provide continued services, facilities, and qualified personnel to maintain and enhance the effectiveness of the Information Resource Center (IRC). 2. Ensure that vitally needed and appropriate information on the diagnosis, prevention, treatment, and underlying causes of mental disorders is available and disseminated in a cost-effective manner to members of the public and to the mental health and health care professionals responsible for their care. 3. Evaluate and analyze the information disseminated to ensure that all communication including IRC messages, graphic materials, exhibits, web information, and public health messaging are clearly conveyed, correctly interpreted, reach the target audiences, and are appropriate for the field of mental health. C. General Project Requirements 1. Mental health call center services: Sources should have the capability of responding to inquiries on public health issues with qualified staff using state-of-the art communication technologies with an in depth subject matter knowledge of current mental health issues. 2. Graphic design and publication development services: NIMH publications, available on the NIMH website, provide the primary content resource on mental illnesses used in dissemination. The Information Resource Center disseminates two million hard-copy publications per year. Content is also downloaded from the NIMH website. Visually appealing, plain language, and culturally sensitive content is vital to dissemination efforts. The Contractor must customize the look and feel of deliverables so that they meet industry standards for compelling, sensitive, and up-to-date graphic design. The Contractor is responsible for translating NIMH specifications into acceptable designs or products for publications and other special materials such as videos, graphs, or any educational materials. 3. Website development and maintenance services: Sources should have industry standard web development and maintenance skills appropriate to the NIMH mission; IT expertise with database systems 4. Public health message development services: Sources should have the capability of developing current, relevant public health messages for Federal agencies. D. Specific Project Requirements/Scope 1. Provide an infrastructure and staff with the knowledge, experience, and training to screen and respond appropriately to 125,000+ inquiries per year, received by mail, email, order forms online, toll free requests for publications, fax, and telephone about NIMH programs and activities, mental illnesses or mental health. Interaction with a publications warehouse will be necessary (DCARC). 2. Provide information specialists that possess the necessary background and knowledge in biomedical, psychology, behavioral and social sciences, and expertise to compose in plain language customized responses to queries from researchers, mental health professionals, patients, members of Congress, the public, and others; and be able to prepare in proper format. 3. Provide a staff member knowledgeable about clinical trials to respond to requests for information on NIMH supported clinical studies. 4. Provide staff fluent in Spanish to respond in writing and by telephone. 5. Provide IT expertise to develop, test, implement, enhance, and maintain integrated web-based, multi-user, database systems with user friendly interfaces for a) inquiries and inventory management; b) mental health resources/referral; c) an email response and records retention system, and d) a mailing key/label system. 6. Provide systems that are compatible with NIMH operating systems which are LAN based, IBM compatible PC workstations with the most current Windows XP, and the latest MS Office Suite, multi-user systems. The NIMH email system is MS Exchange. The system design must have the flexibility and capacity to provide for expanded storage and data retrieval. 7. Provide exhibit services, repair, and support at mental health conferences, meetings, health fairs, etc. and final reports. 8. Provide graphic design and dissemination techniques that are state-of-the-art, and industry standard. 9. Provide creative, visually appealing, plain language, and culturally sensitive content that is coordinated with the NIMH 10. Provide innovative web materials that keep abreast of the changing and rapidly growing advances of all web and social media platforms. 11. Provide the expertise to build web sites, maintain them, work closely with NIMH staff to successfully manage expectations in this task area, and be able to advise NIMH on current trends on all web and social media platforms. 12. Provide the expertise to for analytics and reporting functions. These may include developing an NIMH reference collection, providing abstracting and indexing services on various publications, design and conduct custom searches of PubMed or other literature sources, and summarize findings and other activities in reports to NIMH. 13. Provide industry standard quality message development, production of collateral materials, and evaluation of NIMH message testing on relevant public health messaging and branding of the NIMH. E. Other important considerations 1. Government –furnished property: Sources will not have to furnish servers for use under this contract. The current servers, including the operating systems and other software for both the Web and database, are Government property. NIMH hosts the servers and the software. 2. The ICS application (Integrated Clearinghouse System, also referred to as the Inventory Database Management System, or IDMS) is currently on the NIMH servers. Sources will be required to support the NIMH by accessing the servers through NIMH’s secure VPN connections. 3. Government-owned applications on the NIMH servers include: a. Web-Based Applications (Housed on nimhweb3.nimh.nih.gov, using ColdFusion 7) (1) http://infocenter.nimh.nih.gov (2) http://infocenter.nimh.nih.gov/partners (3) http://infocenter.nimh.nih.gov/partnerreports (4) http://infocenter.nimh.nih.gov/exhibits (5) http://infocenter.nimh.nih.gov/inventory (6) http://infocenter.nimh.nih.gov/il (7) http://infocenter.nimh.nih.gov/il/public_il b. Using ASP.NET (http://infocenter.nimh.nih.gov/NIMHPubsTracking (uses third-party component) c. Windows (1) Inventory Database Management System Request Processing Component (RP) (2) Inventory Database Management System Data Maintenance Component (DM) (3) Mailing List Database - Inventory Database Management System Mailing Keys Component/Maintenance Component (4) Exhibit Management System (EMS) (5) Inventory Management System (IMS); application and SQL Express already installed at DCARC but source code will be provided for the application and database. (6) IDMS - comprises the RP and DM components 4. 508 compliance is applicable for all systems housing data 5. Information Technology (IT) Security must be compliant with the Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 (FISMA) to ensure security of all data generated over the life of the contract. 6. If your company is not located within the Washington DC metropolitan area, you must explain how you can effectively provide these services from a remote location F. Anticipated period of performance. June 2013 - May 2018 G. Capability statement /information required. Capability statements must clearly describe your ability, experience, and resources to continue operation of the Information Support Services Contract (detailed above). Anticipated subcontracting must include a discussion of the capabilities of each/any subcontractor. Capability Statements should address the following four (4) service areas in clearly marked sections (discuss each service separately): 1. MENTAL HEALTH CALL CENTER SERVICES; 2. GRAPHIC DESIGN AND PUBLICATION DEVELOPMENT SERVICES; 3. WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT AND MAINTENANCE SERVICES; AND 4. PUBLIC HEALTH MESSAGE DEVELOPMENT SERVICES Also discuss: 5. Qualifications of specific staff that would be working on this project, including their availability, experience, and formal and other training 6. Prior completed (or on-going) projects of similar nature 7. Your business size (number of employees and gross annual revenue), your eligibility under 8(a) or other set­ aside programs, as applicable (note: the applicable NAICS code for this requirement is 561422 (TELEMARKETING BUREAUS AND OTHER CONTACT CENTERS) ($7M); and 8. Your management structure, history of your organization (e.g., number of years in business, and DUNS #) H. Disclaimer and Important Notes. 1. While this is not a solicitation for a proposal in response to an RFP, qualified sources must provide enough information for the Government to make an informed determination about capability; companies responding should be capable of providing all 4 service areas (i.e. Mental health call center services; graphic design and publication development services; website development and maintenance services; and public health message development services ), and may be considered not capable if any of these capabilities are absent from the discussion. 2. Please note that in order to qualify as an eligible small business for purposes of a small business set-aside, at least 50% of the direct labor cost must be in-house. Specifically, FAR 52.219-14- Limitations on Subcontracting, states that at least 50 percent of the cost of contract performance incurred for personnel shall be expended for employees of the concern. 3. 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. Responses will be held in a confidential manner. 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. 4. If the Government decides to issue a solicitation, a Request for Proposal (RFP) will be available solely via the FEDBIZOPPS web page at http://www.fedbizopps.gov/. It will be the Offeror's responsibility to monitor the FEDBIZOPPS web page for the release of any solicitation and amendments, and to download the RFP and all attachments. 5. Responses to this notice should be received no later than the posted due date, and can be sent either by mail, fax, or e-mail (Banderso@mail.nih.gov) to the point of contact listed. If using the U.S. Postal Service or commercial overnight services, please send an original plus five (5) copies of your response. Note: for commercial overnight services, use the Rockville, MD. 20852 address. I. 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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