AgencyforHealthcare Research and Quality, Diviision of Contracts Management, Executive Office Center, Suite 601, 2101 East Jefferson Street, Rockville, MD 20852

A -- MAINTAIN AND EXPAND THE HEALTHCARE COST AND UTILIZATION PROJECT (HCUP) SOL AHRQ-00-0004 DUE 041400 POC Darryl Grant, Contracting Officer, 301-594-7189 WEB: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, www.ahrq.gov. E-MAIL: Darryl Grant, Contracting Officer, dgrant@ahrq.gov. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), is soliciting proposals on a full and open competitive basis for a five year contract in which the contractor shall maintain and expand a multi-state health care data system for health services research, health policy analysis, and quality measurement and improvement. The mission of the AHRQ (formerly known as the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research) is to support, conduct, and disseminate research that improves access to care and the outcomes, quality, cost, and utilization of health care services. See AHRQ's strategic plan at http://www.ahrq.gov/about/stratpln.htm. The Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP), managed in the Center for Organization and Delivery Studies at AHRQ, is designed to create an information resource of hospital inpatient and outpatient data at the local, state and national level. The primary purpose of this effort is to build databases suitable for a broad range of health services research studies that include research on access to care and the quality, cost, and utilization of health care. HCUP encompasses a family of administrative, longitudinal databases and related software tools and products that are developed by AHRQ in a Federal State Industry partnership. HCUP brings together the data collection efforts of state data organizations, hospital associations, private data organizations, and the federal government to create patient-level health care data in a form that permits in-depth research and analysis while protecting data security and confidentiality. Two HCUP databases are currently available for restricted access public release for health services research. As of Winter 1999/2000, the databases provide ten years of data from 1988 to 1997. Four other specialized HCUP databases are in the developmental/pilot phase. The HCUP databases currently released are the State Inpatient Databases (SID), and the Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS). The HCUP State Outpatient Databases (SOD) component currently consists of state data from ambulatory surgery and emergency department data settings. Ambulatory care/office/clinic visit data may also be included in future years. For more specific details on the HCUP project see the HCUP web page: http://www.ahrq.gov/data/hcup/. The primary objective of the HCUP contract is to provide high quality efficient database design, development, and management. HCUP databases are based on large-scale, multi-user databases, across multiple state settings, and years. Databases can contain upwards of 2 million records and over 100 data elements. The Contractor shall be responsible for soliciting cooperation from potential data sources, collecting data from these sources, developing innovative approaches to combine data from multiple sources in a uniformly formatted research database, developing the design and sampling strategies, statistically analyzing these data, providing documentation, protecting confidentiality, providing technical expertise to designated staff of the AHRQ and others on use of the data for research projects, and monitoring technical advances for efficient functioning of the project. The estimated issuance date of the RFP will be approximately April 14, 2000, with proposals due 45 days thereafter. Requests for copies of the solicitation should be forwarded to Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Attn: Darryl Grant, Division of Contracts Management, 2101 East Jefferson Street, Suite 601, Rockville, MD 20852. Telephone request will not be honored; all request must be submitted in writing. Faxed requests may be sent to (301) 443-7523 to the attention of Darryl Grant. Posted 03/30/00 (W-SN439851). (0090)

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