Health Care Financing Administration; 7500 Security Blvd.; Baltimore, MD 21244

B -- IMPROVE HOSPITAL PERFORMANCE IN INCREASING ORGAN DONATIONS SOL RPF-HCFA-99-0005 DUE 092499 POC Hugh Murdock, Contract Specialist, (410) 786-5146 The Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) intends to award on a sole source basis, under Simplified Acquisition Procedures, a fixed-price purchase order to Harvard University, Division of Health Care Policy, 180 Longwood Ave., Boston, MA 02115. The Department of Health and Human Service's National Organ and Tissue Donation Initiative of 1997 mandates efforts to increase organ donation, and HCFA regulations currently require that Organ Procurment Organizations (OPOs) be evaluated in terms of organ donations in ratio to population. Congress and Government Accounting Office (GAO) consider population too gross a denominator, and have urged HCFA to develop a method for estimating the number of potential organ donors. Harvard University has develped a proprietary regression model that was tested in several areas of the U.S. and validated with hospital death record review. HCFA needs to have this particular regression analysis applied nationally. Using hospital characteristics in the regression model developed by Harvard University staff, the Contractor shall (a) estimate donor potential for all acute care hospitals in the U.S. and aggregate these estimates by State, OPO region, and United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) region; (b) compare the actual number of donors with the estimated potential; and (c) rank the OPOs accordingly. The Contractor shall be responsible for determining sampling methods and sample size for the hospital death record review to validate the use of the regression model nationally or to indicate under what circumstances it is invalid to use the model as an estimate of donor potential, and shall direct the Clinical Data Abstracting Centers undertaking the abstracting. The Contractor shall also interview appropriate staff at each OPO to determine (a) what items of information are routinely obtained from hospitals reporting deaths, in order for the hospital and the OPO to identify potential organ donors; (b) the data systems used for this reporting and record-keeping; and (c) the possible ways in which this information could be standardized in a national data set. The organization that meets these requirements must submit a written statement of interest no later than September 24, 1999 (15 days after the date of Commerce Business Daily publication). Posted 09/07/99 (D-SN376894). (0250)

Loren Data Corp. http://www.ld.com (SYN# 0008 19990909\B-0001.SOL)