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R -- STUDY TO EXAMINE NURSE STAFFING AND QUALITY OF CARE IN HOSPITALS SOL HRSA 250-OA-04(8) POC Jan L. Leahey, Contract Specialist; 301/443-2583 The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) is seeking small and small disadvantaged business organizations who have the requisite knowledge and skills to initiate a study that will examine those patient outcomes that might be sensitive to nurse staffing in inpatient units in acute care hospital settings. Recent changes within the health care system have had a particular effect on hospitals with the result that hospitals have merged, consolidated their services, and restructured their delivery of care. Questions have been raised about the effects of modifications in nurse staffing levels and the mix of nursing personnel used within these staffing levels on the quality of patient care. This study is being initiated to respond to multiple concerns within the Department of Health and Human Services. Four of the agencies within the Department, the HRSA, Division of Nursing (DN), the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA), the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR), and the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) are sponsoring this study to obtain baseline data on nurse staffing in relation to the quality of patient care. The Government is seeking a study design that will provide a nationally generalizable analysis of patient outcome measures that are sensitive to nursing care hours, skill mix, practice patterns, organization, and patient variables including risk adjustment for severity of illness. The work shall be performed in two phases over a twelve-month period as follows: Phase I shall include the review and assessment of data bases available for use in the study and the development of the study design; Phase II, contingent upon approval of the study design and finding existing appropriate data bases, shall provide the analysis and recommendations arising out of the study findings. Interested organizations should submit a tailored capability statement and a brief narrative that reflects the offeror's understanding of the Government's requirement, and demonstrates the necessary resources and experiences to perform the required tasks. Resumes shall describe how through experiences, education, and/or training, the professional persons specified will provide the following capabilities: knowledge of and skill with regard to health services research, particularly pertaining to nurse staffing, patient outcomes, and organization of hospitals; theoretical knowledge of and experience with statistical descriptive and multi variate analysis techniques, particularly as applied in the health care arena; knowledge of research on nursing roles and the delivery of nursing care within the health care system, particularly within the hospital setting. Potential offerors having the ability to provide these services should respond in writing to the attention of Ms. Jan Leahey at the aforementioned address, citing (RFP) HRSA 250-OA-04(8); no later than 15 days from publication of this notice. The Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) code for this requirement is 8741. Based upon the evaluationof the responses to this market survey, the Government reserves the right to make an 8(a) award or to set it aside for small business. No solicitation document exists, therefore requests for such documents shall be considered an invalid response. (0078)

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