Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, Contracts Management Staff, Executive Office Center, Suite 601, 2101 East Jefferson Street, Rockville, MD 20852

R -- DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE NATIONAL MEASURES CLEARINGHOUSE DUE 040299 POC Sharon Williams, Contracting Officer, 301-594-7192 The Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR) is seeking potential sources from qualified small business firms under Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) Code 7375 which have the capability to design, implement, and maintain a National Measures Clearinghouse (NMC). The primary objectives of the NMC are to (1) design, test, implement, and support an Internet-accessible National Measures Clearinghouse that includes a relational database containing standardized information about individual clinical performance measures -- their development, content, testing, and availability; (2) develop an Internet-based users' network or electronic forum that enables users to conduct on-line discussions about aspects of measure development, content, implementation/application, and improvement results; and (3) develop, implement, and maintain a method to analyze information and statistics about users of the National Measures Clearinghouse and users' network and develop a process (i.e., one that is not abarrier to use) to notify interested users of changes in the NMC and to solicit user (customer) feedback on a periodic basis for the purposes of continuous quality monitoring and improvement. The NMC will also include other materials of interest to the NMC target audiences, such as annotated bibliographies and products from AHCPR supported Evidence-based Practice Centers and the National Guideline Clearinghouse. The NMC shall be linked to the Web sites of the NMC partners (i.e., AHA, AHQA, FACCT, JCAHO, NCQA) as well as AHCPR-supported Internet-based projects and the NLM. The measure content of the NMC will build upon the Agency's CONQUEST 2.0 software which is available to the public. Sources must have an understanding of and experience in healthcare quality improvement methods research; quality/performance measures development, testing, and implementation; relational database development; legal issues related to using copyrighted material; working with policy advisory groups and technical expert panels; and Internet and World Wide Web (WWW) applications. Specifically, the offeror must be skilled in research, development, use, and coding of clinical and quality performance measures; substantive work with clinical performance measure developers; work with clinical performance measurement methods; technical/clinical assistance with clinical performance measures; establishing and supporting technical expert panels; creating annotated bibliographies of relevant quality measurement/improvement literature; assessing liability and other legal issues related to implementing and supporting products or systems; designing and conducting customer satisfaction surveys that gain OMB clearance; developing and supporting databases; developing, updating, and supporting technical documentation; developing work plans and simultaneously implementing multiple technically complex tasks; designing, implementing, and supporting products on the Internet/WWW; technical assistance with accessing and using the Internet/WWW; and designing, implementing, and supporting products through mail, fax, and phone systems. The offeror must also be skilled with software life-cycle processes, web servers, user interfaces, search and query software, usage monitoring and reporting, security, backup-recovery, system maintenance, operations, etc. using industry standards and methods documented by the Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute (SEI) Capability Maturity Model (CMM). Qualified offerors will have a Project Director with a minimum of 7-10 years experience exhibiting (1) excellent project management skills that include substantive/technical areas, teamwork, budget management, cost control, responsiveness to change orders, flexibility, and overall project management that results in deliverables being produced on-time, within budget, and of an exceptionally high technical quality; (2) excellent verbal communications skills in discussions with the Project Officer; (3) excellent verbal communication skills in meetings and presentations; and (4)excellent written communication skills. The offeror should be able to devote a staff with a minimum of 4 years experience in the following areas: assessing and improving a framework for codifying condition and performance measure information, holding and supporting policy advisory and technical expert panel meetings, soliciting performance measures and working with measure developers to ensure accuracy and currentness of information, developing annotated bibliographies, developing and implementing customer surveys that meet OMB clearance requirements and provide timely and useful information for product/tool improvement, developing and supporting electronic user forums, developing and supporting WWW applications including recommendation of hardware and software, documentation, testing, reporting, and system maintenance and monitoring. Furthermore, offeror technical staff must have excellent working knowledge of Oracle database management system as well as JAVA, JAVASACRIPT, HTML, XML, and other software languages and techniques that can support a system such as this. The offeror may also be required to have excellent technical staff working knowledge of web servers such as Oracle, Microsoft IIS, Netscape and operating systems such as UNIX (Solaris) or NT operating system. Because the offeror will be required to use the L-Soft system for all List Serve requirements and Microsoft Exchange 5.5 email system, excellent technical staff working knowledge of these are also required. To qualify, the offeror must posses the capability, experience, technical skill, and qualified staff to manage, implement, and support diverse, simultaneously completed tasks within tight deadlines. The NMC must have user testing completed within 6 months and be fully operational 6 weeks thereafter including updating of information on about 1,200 measures and 57 conditions with the addition of more than 500 measures and relevant conditions and with continuing input, updating, and re-examination and possible re-engineering of the software structure by month 18. This is not a formal solicitation. Concerns that respond to this notice must furnish concise responses directed specifically to the requirements mentioned above. Sources possessing experience and demonstrated capability to accomplish the above are to supply pertinent information in sufficient detail to demonstrate their ability to perform the required services. In particular, the number of staff currently employed by the offeror who are available and are qualified to meet AHCPR's requirements should be provided by the following labor categories: Project Director/Principal Investigator; research, use, codification of clinical performance measures; measure developer contact; technical expert panel and policy advisory group meeting support; customer survey; electronic forums; annotated bibliographies; and Internet/WWW-site development, testing, implementation, and support. Information furnished must include background information, resumes, and proof of employment of qualified staff; a description of corporate experience with similar projects including title, sponsoring agency, contract number, and project officer name and telephone number; list of publications and reports from these projects; a description of the offeror's proposed hardware and software infrastructure, testing procedures to ensure high-quality information and timely service, life-cycle documentation processes and procedures; and other information needed by AHCPR staff to perform a proper evaluation. Interested small businesses may submit these tailored capability statements to the attention of the Contracting Officer at the address above no later than April 2, 1999. Posted 03/17/99 (W-SN309545). (0076)

Loren Data Corp. http://www.ld.com (SYN# 0084 19990319\R-0011.SOL)