SOURCES SOUGHT
B -- Support Literature Review, Site Visits, Case Studies and Clinician Group Meetings
- Notice Date
- 6/14/2005
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- NAICS
- 541990
— All Other Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services
- Contracting Office
- Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute, Research Contracts Br., 6120 Executive Blvd. EPS Suite 600, Rockville, MD, 20852
- ZIP Code
- 20852
- Solicitation Number
- Reference-Number-RFI-NCI-50052-NV
- Response Due
- 6/22/2005
- Archive Date
- 7/7/2005
- Description
- This sources sought announcement for the National Cancer Institute, Cancer Control and Population Sciences (DCCPS), Applied Research Program (ARP) is seeking market information on businesses/organizations capable of providing literature review, interviews and site visits. THIS SOURCES SOUGHT ANNOUNCEMENT IS NOT A REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS AND THE GOVERNMENT IS NOT COMMITTED TO AWARD A CONTRACT PURSUANT TO THIS ANNOUNCEMENT. NO SOLICITATION PACKAGE IS AVAILABLE AT THIS TIME AND REQUESTS FOR SOLICITATION PACKAGES WILL NOT RECEIVE A RESPONSE. The applicable NAICS code is 541990 and the Size Standard is $6 million average annual receipt for the preceding three fiscal years. This Sources Sought Synopsis is in support of market research being conducted by the NCI to identify capable potential sources. The purpose of this Sources Sought Synopsis is to determine if there are potential small businesses who are capable of performing this effort. If this acquisition is determined to be reserved for small business, the Government will use the information gathered from this Sources Sought Synopsis to help identify small business firms participating in this market. Introduction: The National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Cancer Institute (NCI), may enter into a contract for a preliminary review of information available about the safety, effectiveness, patient-centeredness, efficiency, timeliness, and equity of cancer care for the purposes of designing, implementing, and evaluating prototype delivery systems. This contract will support literature review, site visits, case studies, and clinician group meetings. Using a framework that outlines the objectives of cancer care, the overall focus of the project is to provide foundational information to guide the reliable translation of research evidence into practice. A particular area of interest in this solicitation is the period of cancer care from suspicion of cancer through diagnosis and plan of care. Background: The mission of the National Cancer Institute is to eliminate death and suffering due to cancer. From a health system perspective, this goal means eliminating suffering from cancer and/or the effects of interventions and improving survival for patients cancer whose care the health system provides. From a patient perspective, the goal can be more simply stated: ?I get exactly the help I need, when I need it.? To make such goals more specific, an appropriate starting place and statement of objectives for design of health care processes are the six aims for health care described by the Institute of Medicine. These aims are applicable to cancer care though they must be further defined and operationalized. Increasingly, oncologists, health services researchers, and national advisory committees have focused on the need to better understand systems of care including cancer care and at many levels including patient clinician decision making (e.g., clinical practice guidelines, evidence-based practice, accurate and complete pathology services), the flow of patients and information within and across settings of care; and the effects of external environmental factors, such as reimbursement and regulation, training. Such understanding includes the effects of changes in these arenas on the outcomes of care that matter to patients and policymakers (e.g., clinical endpoints such as tumor shrinkage; survival, health-related quality of life, economic burden, patient experience of care). In the field of oncology, the need for attention to care delivery, access, and costs is made more urgent because of the pipeline of new, complex, and costly technologies. Such technologies include molecular medicine (e.g., genomics, proteomics, nanotechnology, molecular imaging) and the anticipated need to tailor many possible diagnostic and therapeutic choices, in a variety of combinations for individual patients. As in any field, new technologies in oncology bring the potential for error and patient harm as well as benefit. The complexity of oncology care requires multidisciplinary input, the transfer of patient care across settings, departments, and specialty, and the loss of information about a patient or loss of follow-up of findings will occur unless careful attention is paid to the design of systems that minimizes these events now and in anticipation of advanced molecular and information technologies. A major part of improving care delivery will rightly include a focus on creating safety systems such that current serious harms from, for example, a mis- or missed diagnosis, use of the wrong protocol or an error in implementing a protocol make the occurrence of adverse patient outcomes extremely unlikely not only in the short run, but also for survival and quality of life. In addition, informatics and health information systems have the potential for making such information available to clinical settings, linking discovery, development and delivery more quickly. Numerous studies have shown that even today, many patients throughout the United States do not receive optimal cancer care. This requirement adopts the six Aims proposed by the Institute of Medicine. That is, from a cancer care delivery perspective care should be: Safe?avoiding injuries to patients from the care that is intended to help them; Effective?providing services based on scientific knowledge to all who could benefit and refraining from providing services to those not likely to benefit (avoiding underuse and overuse, respectively); Patient-centered?providing care that is respectful of and responsive to individual patient preferences, needs, and values and ensuring that patient values guide all clinical decisions; Timely?reducing waits and sometimes harmful delays for both those who receive and those who give care; Efficient?avoiding waste, including waste of equipment, supplies, ideas, and energy; and Equitable?providing care that does not vary in quality because of personal characteristics such as gender, ethnicity, geographic location, and socioeconomic status. Useful ideas, better data on the delivery of care, and a comprehensive approach to system change are needed to focus, motivate, and sustain substantial improvements. Some published and much anecdotal evidence suggests considerable variation in quality, including the appropriate use of the best evidence, skill in diagnostic and treatment interventions; involving patients in decision making throughout the continuum of cancer care; and using data about practice to improve care processes. However, it is difficult to obtain data that can be used to assess the quality and outcomes of patient care and to support the care process and quality improvement. In addition, cancer patients often find the care system confusing and advice contradictory, identifying who is in charge of their care, and have trouble having their needs met. The overall objective of the work is to identify barriers and facilitators of high quality cancer care; and identify innovative ideas for safer, and more effective, patient-centered, timely, efficient, and equitable cancer care in the United States; including potential gains in each area from clinical information systems. The contractor shall conduct a literature review (both peer-reviewed and ?grey? literature) on the quality of cancer care; semi-structured individual and group discussions; and site visits to a selected set of cancer care service delivery organizations. The purpose of the semi-structured discussions with key leaders and practicing clinicians and of the site visits to a variety of oncology settings is to learn from clinicians, senior leadership, health care experts, and patients about their views, gather information for improvement including innovations in care, safety-related issues, barriers to high quality care, and ideas for change, even if not already implemented. The results of this work will inform future projects intended to design and implement systems to improve cancer care services. The contractor shall synthesize finding of the literature review, discussions, and the site visits and present the findings and conclusions to the government for its use in designing cancer care prototypes. PROPOSED STATEMENT OF WORK FOR INFORMATION ONLY: Technical Requirements: A) The contractor shall submit a plan of work in the form of a Gantt chart with dates for each milestone and annotations for each milestone that includes personnel effort and other resources to be used; B) Capture and summarize what is known about cancer care quality through (A) review of published and ?gray literature? on cancer care quality. Review the published peer reviewed and non peer reviewed literature in commonly used databases (e.g., PubMed, nursing, health services) and summarize the findings as a literature review with complete citations with a particular emphasis on the period of cancer care from initial suspicion through diagnosis and plan of treatment. The contractor shall acquire and review relevant articles and relevant references in those papers and search for and gather ?grey? literature (e.g., reports and position papers by commissions; papers and websites of professional, health system or health plan, and advocacy organizations) on cancer care quality. The contractor shall summarize findings of the literature review and provide copies of the relevant references. An electronic draft of the summary shall be made available to the government for review and comment. C) Interview health policy experts, senior leadership and researchers. The contractor shall conduct at least 15 interviews by phone or in person. Each interview shall be scheduled for approximately 60 to 90 minutes. Interviews. Within 60 calendar days after completion of all individual interviews, the contractor shall provide a summary to the government in draft form for review and comment. D) Conduct group interviews with practicing clinicians in several oncology specialties and cancer patients and/or family members of cancer patients. The contractor shall conduct at least four group discussions, with each group organized around a specific topic or oncology specialty, for example, medical and radiation oncology, surgical oncology, oncology nursing, and/or patient/family experience. The contractor shall develop the framework for individual and group discussion and meet with the government to finalize the specific criteria required for the framework and shall provide draft guides for review and comment by the government before any interviews take place. Discussion topics for individual and/or group discussions shall include (but not be limited to) perceived barriers to high quality cancer care, information needs and gaps, and desired functions of a clinical cancer information system. Both practicing oncologists and experts in health information and information technology shall be included in discussions about integrating patient and clinical data to facilitate the flow of information across settings of care and specialties. The contractor shall include discussion about how to foster the use of health information systems for informed decisionmaking by patients and treating clinicians and what value this data might have for quality measurement and improvement. The contractor shall provide to the government in draft form for review and comment a summary within 60 calendar days after completion of all individual interviews and a summary of results within 60 calendar days after each group discussion. E) Conduct site visits. The contractor shall meet with the project officer to recommend the location and timing of site visits. In this solicitation site visit means a geographic area. A site visit may include multiple organizations. . . The minimum requirement is the inclusion of no fewer than three and no more than six different geographic areas for site selection with the expectation that multiple organizations will be drawn from each geographic location. Visits to each organization may vary in length from an hour to a day, and the time in a geographic location may vary in length from one to three days. Discussion topics shall include (but not be limited to) how cancer care and interactions among specialists are organized, how care is provided, why it has been developed that way, the role of health informatics, perceived barriers to high quality cancer care, information needs and gaps, and desired functions of a clinical cancer information system. Each site visit shall be summarized as a descriptive (not evaluative) case study. The draft case study with relevant background appendices shall be provided to the government for review and comment. Visits to each geographic area shall include an oncologist. The travel and any honorarium for an oncologist shall be covered under this contract. Additional site visit members (e.g., project officer) shall be included as required by the government, but their travel will be paid by the government. Before each site visit , the contractor shall provide to each organization to be visited background information on the purpose of the site visit, background information on the visitors, and any applicable letters of support from e.g., government agencies, professional, advocacy, foundations. At least seven days before each site visit, the contractor shall provide each site visitor and the government an agenda book that includes an itinerary for the visit, including names of individuals, titles, organizational addresses and contact info, background on the organizations and individuals being visited; a description of the context of each organization in the community in which it practices; information about each site visitor; a guide for site visitors that includes the topics to be discussed and expectations of their role and reporting responsibilities (e.g., debriefing). After each site visit, the contractor shall debrief the site visitors and provide a draft case summary of each organization visited to all visitors for review within 30 calendar days of its completion. After each site visit, the contractor shall prepare follow up letters and obtain any additional materials that have been offered. The contractor shall summarize and present the results of both activities to the government at the conclusion of the data gathering phase of the project. Proposed Reporting Requirements: Deliverables and Payment Schedule ? A) Work plan; B) Literature Review and Interviews; C) A proposed list of site visits and the organizations to be visited during each site visit; D) A final version of the site visitor guide that incorporates review comments by the government; E) Six copies and an electronic version of the final summary of the literature review are due no later than when six calendar weeks after the final site visit is completed; F) Six copies and an electronic version of the final summary of the individual and group interviews are due no later than six calendar weeks after the final site visit is completed; G) Six copies and an electronic version of the final summary of the site visits, including case study summaries of each site visit are due no later than four calendar weeks before the end of the performance period ; H) Six copies and a final electronic version of the presentation to the steering group and final report to the government are due at the close of the contract period. Qualifications: A) Lead scientist. The contractor shall provide scientific oversight by a senior, experienced individual who is knowledgeable about cancer care in the United States. This senior scientist must identify and speak knowledgeably with leaders in the field. The contractor?s lead scientist shall have an MD or doctorate in health services. He or she should have at least five years experience as a senior investigator in the field of quality of health care research or practice improvement. The senior scientist must provide assurance that a substantial proportion of work effort will be spent overseeing and participating in this project, including at least two of the site visits. B) Key Personnel include the principal investigator and other senior scientists responsible for managing and supervising the proposed contract shall have experience in the use of health literature databases and search methods, systematic review and synthesis. Key personnel shall have experience organizing and conducting site visits for learning (not only for program evaluation). Additional experience requirements include the design of guides for and the facilitation by key personnel or a subcontractor of group interviews with health care professionals and senior administrators. Oncologists included in the site visits may be medical, surgical, and/or radiation oncology specialists and shall be approved by the government based on their experience and demonstrated interest in the organization and delivery of cancer care. ANY INTERESTED FIRM should submit an original and one copy of their capability statement which demonstrates the firm's ability to perform the key requirements described above. Standard company brochures will not be considered a sufficient response to this Sources Sought Synopsis. At a minimum, each small business shall provide capabilities/knowledge/experience necessary to perform the Statement of Work (SOW). Also, a firm must demonstrate they have the necessary personnel with demonstrated experience, labor, materials, services, equipment and facilities to support the efforts detailed in the Statement of Work (SOW). Responses must reference Request for Information (RFI) number RFI-NCI-50052-NV and include the following: (1) Name and Address of the Organization, (2) Type of business (i.e. small business, disadvantaged, women-owned, veteran-owned etc), (3) Point of contact with name, title, phone, fax and email, (4) DUNS number, (5) Contractors capability statement addressing the issues listed above, (6) List of organizations to whom similar types of services have been previously provided to include contract number, dollar value, name and phone number of contracting officer. THIS SYNOPSIS IS FOR INFORMATION AND PLANNING PURPOSES ONLY AND IS NOT TO BE CONSTRUED AS A COMMITMENT BY THE GOVERNMENT. THIS IS NOT A SOLICITATION ANNOUNCEMENT AND NO CONTRACT WILL BE AWARDED FROM THIS ANNOUNCEMENT. NO REIMBURSEMENT WILL BE MADE FOR ANY COSTS ASSOCIATED WITH PROVIDING INFORMATION IN RESPONSE TO THIS ANNOUNCEMENT AND ANY FOLLOW-UP INFORMATION REQUESTS. RESPONDENT WILL NOT BE NOTIFIED OF THE RESULTS OF THE EVALUATION. ALL INFORMATION SUBMITTED IN RESPONSE TO THIS ANNOUNCEMENT MUST BE RECEIVED ON OR BEFORE THE CLOSING DATE. THE CLOSING DATE FOR RESPONSES IS JUNE 22, 2005 at 1PM EDT. Faxed and emailed capability statements are NOT authorized. All questions must be in writing and may be emailed to Debbie Moore at dm170b@nih.gov or faxed (301) 402-4513. It is the vendor?s responsibility to call (301) 402-4509 and verify that questions were received.
- Record
- SN00829343-W 20050616/050614211929 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
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