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FBO DAILY - FEDBIZOPPS ISSUE OF SEPTEMBER 23, 2015 FBO #5052
DOCUMENT

D -- Elsevier Collection Subscription, Clinical Key Award Notice and posting of J&A for other than full and open conpetition - Attachment

Notice Date

9/21/2015
 

Notice Type

Attachment
 

NAICS

519130 — Internet Publishing and Broadcasting and Web Search Portals
 

Contracting Office

Department of Veterans Affairs;Program Contracting Activity Central;6150 Oak Tree Blvd, Suite 300;Independence OH 44131
 

ZIP Code

44131
 

Solicitation Number

VA70115N0100
 

Archive Date

12/31/2015
 

Point of Contact

adrian.cadena@va.gov
 

E-Mail Address

adrian.cadena@va.gov
(adrian.cadena@va.gov)
 

Small Business Set-Aside

N/A
 

Award Number

VA701-15-P-0090
 

Award Date

9/18/2015
 

Awardee

ELSEVIER INC.;3251 RIVERPORT LN;MARYLAND HEIGHTS;MO;63043
 

Award Amount

4,999,990.00
 

Description

DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS Justification and Approval (J&A) For Other Than Full and Open Competition (>$150K) 1.Contracting Activity: Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Program Contracting Activity Central (PCAC), 6150 Oak Tree Boulevard, Suite 300, Independence, OH 44131 and the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) Office of Informatics and Analytics (OIA) Library Network Office (LNO) offer this Justification for Other Than Full and Open Competition. Purchase Request number is 776-15-4-8251-0071. 2.Nature and/or Description of the Action Being Processed: This request is for the purchase of renewal of the VA enterprise-wide license for electronic access to the Elsevier Collection Subscription, Clinical Key. Procurement of access to Clinical Key will be accomplished through the establishment of a new standalone firm fixed price contract following the procedures in FAR Part 12 and Part 13.5 Test Program for Certain Commercial Items and specifically FAR 13.501 Special Documentation Requirements, where acquisitions conducted under Simplified Acquisition Procedures are exempt from the requirements of FAR Part 6, but still require a justification using the format of FAR 6.303-2. The estimated value of the procurement is $4,999,990.00 for a one (1) year subscription with a period of performance (POP) of September 30, 2015 to September 29, 2016. 3.Description of Supplies/Services Required to Meet the Agency's Needs: The VHA medical center libraries, Central Office staff, and the staff at the all VA Medical Centers (VAMCs), Community Based Outpatient Clinics (CBOCs), and other affiliated programs and offices require continued access to the web-based version of the Elsevier Collection Clinical Key Subscription, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, which satisfies the needs of hospitals that are always open and staffed. The Elsevier collection is used heavily by VA librarians, clinicians, researchers, and educators for access to medical and surgical content and includes practice monographs, patient education handouts, and procedural videos. Continued access to the Clinical Key Subscription is critical to medical staff and supplies information used directly in patient care. 4.Statutory Authority Permitting Other than Full and Open Competition: FAR13.5 Test Program: The authority for applying the Commercial Test Program of FAR 13.5 is (Section 4202 of the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996) and is implemented by for restricting competition on this procurement via FAR 13.106-1(b)(2). The statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition is at 41 U.S.C. 1901. 5.Demonstration that the Contractor's Unique Qualifications or Nature of the Acquisition Requires the Use of the Authority Cited Above (applicability of authority): The web-based version of the Elsevier Clinical Key Collection Subscription provides access to over 800 books, 500 journals, and 9,000 medical and surgical videos. The VA LNO has identified several book and journal titles offered by Elsevier that are of specific interest to VA, and are proprietary to Elsevier. Elsevier is also the sole distributor of their online product, making them the only source available to provide a subscription to their service. There are several content resources within this subscription that are only available through Elsevier Clinical Key Subscription. These include the following: First Consult which is a "point of care monographs that leverage evidence-based medical information into succinct, clinical answers that are trusted, quick, and accessible from world-renowned physician experts, including physician specialists from Cleveland Clinic." Clinical Review Articles that "includes all of the medical and surgical specialties covered by The Clinics. The clinical review articles from The Clinics feature invited experts in the field who distill the latest clinical findings into actionable reviews of how those findings can be applied to patient care." Medical and Procedural Videos "includes over 17,700 medical and procedural videos from books and journals. All are semantically enriched to make them easily searchable and discoverable. The 312 procedural video modules from Procedures Consult provide ¦ medical and surgical content for specific procedures required by the ACGME which serve as a great method for teaching these techniques or refreshing skills. " In addition to the numerous articles, videos, and journals that are proprietary to Elsevier; many other articles are available online through other sources, Elsevier, through the Clinical Key Subscription, provides access to all of the articles at one source. This allows the practitioner to search quickly all relevant articles for medical information that is critical to patient care. The Clinical Key Subscription is "powered by Elsevier's Smart Content, tagged with EMMeT (Elsevier Merged Medical Taxonomy), which enables ClinicalKey to understand clinical terms and thus discover medical content that is the most relevant, plus find related content that would be missed by other search engines. Elsevier's Smart Content has been designed to understand the vast number of relationships between clinical concepts. By organizing these relationships in a hierarchical manner, it guarantees that ClinicalKey provides specific, targeted results to physicians' questions. The tool allows clinicians to filter search results by clinically meaningful subcategories (content type, specialty, and by relevant clinical categories like treatment and diagnosis). Specialty-specific tools enable physicians to quickly go from topic overview to in-depth specialty information to meet clinical challenges." Elsevier also meets VA's needs by providing enterprise-wide access to their content with no geographic or concurrent user limitations, content in both HTML and PDF formats, access to online only supplements and images, and detailed usage reports. 6.Description of Efforts Made to ensure that offers are solicited from as many potential sources as deemed practicable: A Notice of Intent to Sole Source was posted to FBO.gov on 3/09/2015 with responses due by 3/23/2015. There were no responses to the Notice. Market Research was conducted for the same procurement in FY14. A Sources Sought Notice was posted to FBO.gov 3/31/14 with responses due by 4/25/14. No responses were received to that Notice. Additionally, queries to the internet resulted in references only to Elsevier. 7.Determination by the Contracting Officer that the Anticipated Cost to the Government will be Fair and Reasonable: The Government has developed an Independent Government Cost Estimate (IGCE) for this procurement of $4,999,990.00.00. The Government will also use historical pricing to help further guarantee price reasonableness. Price reasonableness is determined by comparison to the IGCE and by comparison to historical pricing. The VA has purchased this collection in FY12 - $4,957,406.70; FY13 - $4,732,901.82; and FY14 - $4,824,359.00. 8.Description of the Market Research Conducted and the Results, or a Statement of the Reasons Market Research Was Not Conducted: As stated in Section 6 of this J&A, a Notice of Intent to Sole Source was published to FBO.gov and no responses were received. Additionally, an email was sent to the government Point of Contact for Elsevier. They confirmed that Elsevier does not allow other companies to re-sale their subscription of Clinical Key. The specific content of the Clinical Key Subscription was also provided and showed that several of the journals within this subscription are not available from anywhere except Elsevier which confirms that Elsevier, Inc. is still the sole distributor if its product. 9.Any Other Facts Supporting the Use of Other than Full and Open Competition: None. 10.Listing of Sources that Expressed, in Writing, an Interest in the Acquisition: There were no other sources that expressed in writing an interest in the acquisition. 11.A Statement of the Actions, if any, the Agency May Take to Remove or Overcome any Barriers to Competition before Making subsequent acquisitions for the supplies or services required: The VACO Central Library and Program Contracting Activity (PCAC) will engage in continual market research to identify products and subscription titles that will enable competition for this requirement in future procurements.
 

Web Link

FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/spg/VA/ISC/OISC/VA70115N0100/listing.html)
 

Document(s)

Attachment
 

File Name: VA701-15-N-0100 VA701-15-N-0100_2.docx (https://www.vendorportal.ecms.va.gov/FBODocumentServer/DocumentServer.aspx?DocumentId=2329554&FileName=VA701-15-N-0100-001.docx)

Link: https://www.vendorportal.ecms.va.gov/FBODocumentServer/DocumentServer.aspx?DocumentId=2329554&FileName=VA701-15-N-0100-001.docx

 

Note: If links are broken, refer to Point of Contact above or contact the FBO Help Desk at 877-472-3779.
 

Record

SN03896510-W 20150923/150921235844-2a8448565edd334978b0314c54d2231d (fbodaily.com)
 

Source

FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)

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