SOURCES SOUGHT
B -- Request for Information (RFI). Lower Extremities Blast Injury Prevention Standards.
- Notice Date
- 1/30/2014
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- NAICS
- 541712
— Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences (except Biotechnology)
- Contracting Office
- US Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity, ATTN: MCMR-AAA, 820 Chandler Street, Frederick, MD 21702-5014
- ZIP Code
- 21702-5014
- Solicitation Number
- W81XWH-14-T-JLM123
- Response Due
- 2/28/2014
- Archive Date
- 3/31/2014
- Point of Contact
- Jeremy McMurry, 301 619 2035
- E-Mail Address
-
US Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity
(jeremy.l.mcmurry@us.army.mil)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- Lower Extremities Blast Injury Prevention Standards Request For Information This Request for Information (RFI) is for information and planning purposes only and shall not be construed as a solicitation or as an obligation on the part of the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (USAMRMC), Headquartered at Fort Detrick, Maryland. The USAMRMC mission is to provide medical knowledge and materiel lifecycle management to protect, treat and optimize Warfighter health and performance across the full spectrum of operations. The Department of Defense (DoD) Blast Injury Research Program Coordinating Office (PCO) coordinates the DoD blast injury research investment, on behalf of the Executive Agent (EA), to ensure critical knowledge gaps are filled, avoid costly and unnecessary duplication of effort, and accelerate the fielding of prevention and treatment strategies by leveraging existing knowledge and fostering collaboration and information sharing among the world's blast injury experts. The PCO advises the EA through Commanding General (CG) USAMRMC, on Military Health System (MHS) Blast Injury Prevention and Treatment Standards to recommend to the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs [OASD(HA)]. To identify the best available standards that will meet the needs of the DoD, the PCO in collaboration with the Johns Hopkins University-Applied Physics Laboratory developed the MHS Blast Injury Prevention Standards Recommendation (BIPSR) Process. The BIPSR Process is designed to address the needs of all Services for biomedically valid Blast Injury Prevention Standards to protect against the entire spectrum of blast injuries. The process provides an unbiased, stakeholder-driven critical assessment methodology for identifying the best biomedically valid candidate MHS Blast Injury Prevention Standards currently available. It supports the development and testing of safe weapons, and effective combat platform crew and individual protection systems. It is important to note that the BIPSR Process is not a research program and does not develop new injury criteria or injury prediction tools. However, it does inform research by identifying gaps where no suitable standards currently exist. The term quote mark Military Health System (MHS) Blast Injury Prevention Standard quote mark is defined as a quote mark biomedically-valid description of physiologically- or biomechanically- based injury and performance responses of a human to blast insults quote mark. The standards can range from simple dose response curves and injury thresholds that address single components of blast insults, such as peak force, to complex algorithms and computational models that address multiple components of blast insults, such as force-time history. These standards will play a critical role in the prevention of Warfighter injuries and the enhancement of Warfighter survivability by informing health hazard assessments, survivability assessments, and protection system development aimed at producing safe weapon systems, survivable combat platforms, and effective protection systems. To conduct these assessments, the DoD needs MHS Blast Injury Prevention Standards to investigate the physiological effects of blast injuries on the Warfighter, both when generated by enemy explosive weapons and from blast exposures during weapon systems firing. For the purposes of this RFI, Blast Injury is defined as the injury that occurs as the result of the detonation of high explosives, including vehicle-borne and person-borne explosive devices, rocket-propelled grenades, and improvised explosive devices. The taxonomy of injuries from blast explosive devices is: (a) Primary: Blast overpressure injury resulting in direct tissue damage from the shock wave coupling into the body; (b) Secondary: Injury produced by primary fragments originating from the exploding device (preformed and natural (unformed) casing fragments, and other projectiles deliberately introduced into the device to enhance the fragment threat); and secondary fragments, which are projectiles from the environment (debris, vehicular metal, etc.); (c) Tertiary: Displacement of the body or part of body by the blast overpressure causing acceleration/deceleration to the body or its parts, which may subsequently strike hard objects causing typical blunt injury (translational injury), avulsion (separation) of limbs, stripping of soft tissues, skin speckling with explosive product residue and building structural collapse with crush and blunt injuries, and crush syndrome development; (d) Quaternary: Other quote mark explosive products quote mark effects - heat (radiant and convective), and toxic, toxidromes from fuel, metals, etc. - causing burn and inhalation injury; (e) Quinary: Clinical consequences of quote mark post detonation environmental contaminants quote mark including bacteria (deliberate and commensal, with or without sepsis), radiation (dirty bombs), tissue reactions to fuel, metals, etc. To manage the scope of assessments the human body is viewed in eight sections: head and neck body region, thorax, abdomen, pelvic and urogenital, spine and back, lower extremity, upper extremity and dermal burns. The types of injuries to these eight sections are: Polytrauma/Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), Extremity Trauma, Hearing Loss, Peripheral Nerve Injuries, Urogenital, Eye Injuries, Abdominal Injury, Paralysis/Spinal Cord Injury, Burns, and Fractures. Based on priorities, the BIPSR Process is currently focused on Human Lower Extremities (LE) Blast Injury Prevention Standards. The LE includes: lower limb, femur, knee, tibia, ankle (talus), foot and heel (calcaneus). The BIPSR Process injury types of interest are Fracture, Vascular Injury, Nerve Injury, Muscular Injury, Ligament and Tendon Injury, Traumatic amputation, and Dermal Burns. The BIPSR Process has identified the operational environments and intended uses of Human Lower Extremities (LE) Blast Injury Prevention Standards for the protection of military service members that are in mounted (in a vehicle, standing or seated, restrained or unrestrained), dismounted (not in a vehicle, standing or seated), aircraft ejection and hard landing, ship deck slap (rising force underneath vessels and the collapse that follows), underwater load environments, underwater explosions, and underwater shock. The BIPSR Process identified a need to define injury criteria and test methods to establish thresholds for protective systems designed to protect the military service members' lower extremities from all blast injury categories and types in their respective operational environments. This RFI seeks to (1) obtain information on existing Human Lower Extremities (LE) Blast Injury criteria, thresholds, and models, etc that could be considered as potential DoD standards, and those being developed or researched (2) identify gaps (3) allow performers/producers of existing protection systems that are highly relevant to understanding human tolerance limits and predicting injuries sustained by blast injuries to describe how they can assist in standards identification, development and research (4) identify entities that have developed, or are developing or researching blast injury, criteria, thresholds and testing methods, and possess appropriate scientific expertise, experience, and resources to describe and provide the scientific evidence needed to inform the standards (5) identify and obtain methodologies, tools, models and simulations, dose-response curves, injury thresholds., computational models, their components and parameters and associated technologies, an upgradable platform for continuous integration of improved technologies (6) obtain information from a broad community, including industry, academia, and other federal agencies on the availability of military relevant blast injury standards. To submit copies of publications, articles, reports, images, etc. related to existing or developing Human Lower Extremities (LE) Blast Injury criteria, thresholds, and models, etc. for consideration as potential DoD Military Health System Blast Injury Protection Standards, please go to the DoD Blast Injury Research Program website at: https://blastinjuryresearch.amedd.army.mil/index.cfm?f=application.rfi. You will be asked to provide basic contact information and will then be provided a user name, password, and a link to the RFI submission site. After submitting your document(s), you will receive confirmation that your document was successfully submitted. DISCLAIMERS AND IMPORTANT NOTES This is an RFI issued solely for information and program planning purposes; it does not constitute a formal solicitation for proposals. In accordance with FAR 15.201(e), responses to this notice are not offers and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract. Submission is voluntary and is not required to propose to a subsequent Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) (if any) or other research solicitation (if any) on this topic. The USAMRMC/U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity (USAMRAA)/DoD Blast Injury Research PCO will not provide reimbursement for costs incurred in responding to this RFI. Respondents are advised that USAMRAA/USAMRMC/DoD Blast Injury Research Program Coordinating Office are under no obligation to acknowledge receipt of the information received or provide feedback to respondents with respect to any information submitted under this RFI. Information in responses will be held confidential to the extent permitted under applicable laws and regulations. Any proprietary, non-public information should be marked so. The Questions should be addressed to the Contract Specialist who is the point of contact for this RFI. The Contract Specialist is Mr Jeremy McMurry and he could be reached at (301) 619-2035or via e-mail at jeremy.l.mcmurry.civ@mail.mil
- Web Link
-
FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/spg/USA/USAMRAA/DAMD17/W81XWH-14-T-JLM123/listing.html)
- Place of Performance
- Address: US Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity ATTN: MCMR-AAA, 820 Chandler Street Frederick MD
- Zip Code: 21702-5014
- Zip Code: 21702-5014
- Record
- SN03278208-W 20140201/140130235430-3b72ee9c855e8c6f8fd931716a8de818 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
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