7A20--NOTICE OF INENT TO SOLE SOURCE AcuStaf Labor Management Software and Service Package

THIS SPECIAL NOTICE / INTENT TO SOLE SOURCE IS ISSUED SOLELY FOR INFORMATION AND PLANNING PURPOSES ONLY AND DOES NOT CONSTITUTE A SOLICITATION. THE SUBMISSION OF PRICING, CAPABILITIES FOR PLANNING PURPOSES, AND OTHER MARKET INFORMATION IS HIGHLY ENCOURAGED AND ALLOWED UNDER THIS SPECIAL NOTICE IN ACCORDANCE WITH (IAW) FAR 15.201(e). DISCLAIMER This special notice is issued solely for information and planning purposes only and does not constitute a solicitation. All information received in response to this special notice that is marked as proprietary will be handled accordingly. IAW FAR 15.201(e), responses to this notice are not offers and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract. Responders are solely responsible for all expenses associated with responding to this special notice. SPECIAL NOTICE DESCRIPTION This is NOT a solicitation announcement. This is a special notice of an intent to sole source to a specific vendor. The purpose of this special notice is to notify the industry of an intent to procure a labor management software system from a single vendor and to survey the market/industry to gain knowledge of potential qualified sources and their size classification relative to NAICS 541519 Other Computer Related Services (size standard of $30 million). Responses to this special notice will be used by the Government to make appropriate acquisition decisions. After review of the responses to this sources-sought, a solicitation announcement may be published. Responses to this sources-sought synopsis are not considered adequate responses for a solicitation announcement. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), VISN 2 Network Contracting Office, is intending to award, on a sole source basis, a labor management solution, brand name or equal to the product described below, for the VA New Jersey Healthcare System. The required solution/software is a real-time dynamic, integrated system that provides comprehensive and systematic accounting of nursing workload and staffing requirements, and scheduling needs to meet Federal law and other regulatory requirements. Scope of Work: An integrated automated labor management tool for capturing data extraction necessary to effectively assign staffing resources and monitor standards of care. This system will pull from systems that already have the data stored to avoid duplicate effort and to feed the other downstream data systems. The primary users of the system will be staffing scheduling, so managers can coordinate schedules, capture data, produce reports, and coordinate work assignments to meet patient care needs to effectively allocate resources real-time bases on real patient care demand impacting our ability to make synchronized solutions to comprehensively labor manage for patient care support. This request seeks to provide a contiguous labor management solution to automate scheduling and staffing processes; provide decision support for staff assignments based on the objective and variable data supposed to the best estimates; improve patient care by matching nursing competency to required needs; and allows self-scheduling options to nursing providers and data for outcome measurements. This will enable ONS to create strategic plans based on retrievable and accurate data. The system will accommodate today's increasing staffing challenges by using 21st century Technology. Background: Staff Scheduling not only involves staff planning, but also scores of managerial tasks including adherence to directives limiting hours of work in a given time period. The generation of various reports to support management in their planning of staff scheduling will allow VA New Jersey Healthcare System LB to accurately account for time and pay in accordance to defined payment schedules. Nurses functioning as managers must have the flexibility to determine the appropriate nursing staff to meet patient care needs while considering a constellation of important variables, including the following: Scheduled leave, unscheduled leave, education, experience, orientation, temporary staff on the unit, acuity of patients, acuity on a particular shift, physical layout of the unit, availability of hospital resources, technology on the unit, and unit volatility (such as the number of admissions, discharges and Transfers). Objective: There is a need for an acuity/patient classification system to match the changing care needs of the patients to the appropriate staffing level based on the patient condition and the amount of nursing required to manage the care of each patient. Hospital based staffing requires a 24-hour coverage a day, 7 days a week. Nursing staff work a variety of shifts that require an hourly rate increase, and contract/agency and travel nurses all have different compensation requirements. Therefore, a staffing scheduling system needs to accurately correlate and calculate time and cost by work unit, nurse's type and pay variables. nursing leadership needs data to plan for current and future staff needs and costs; this system gives them the tools to help manage their workforce. multiple standardized reports are needed as well as the ability to create ad hoc reports. Product: Manufacturer: Acustaf Development Corporation, Product: Labor Management Software Line Item 0001 3001 Labor Management Software: Includes software license for up to 5,000 active employees. Labor Management Software as a Service includes HR, Schedule, Staffing, Track, Finance, Payroll and Report modules. HR information is imported from the government Human Resources Software (example: VA uses VistA) to eliminate double data entry. AcuStaf has established an HR interface to VistA at 27 several VA facilities across the country. The information in the interface is used to populate HR data in AcuStaf. Schedules are created in AcuStaf using a block, manager, or employee self-scheduling method. Staffing incorporates a real-time aspect, bringing in workload measurements from established systems (example: patient census information for hospitals). Finance allows budgets to be inputted and staffing targets to meet industry and/or government established targets. Payroll is the time & attendance portion of AcuStaf that allows for the automation of tracking employee timecards and accurate costing information. All information within the system is reportable and can be exported to a screen, PDF, Excel, Word, CSV and more. Product 3001-2 is for systems with 200 to 700 active employees. Product 3001-3 is for systems with greater than 700 active employees. The first 200 employees are billed according to the price of product 3001-1, the next 500 employees are billed according to the price of product 3001-2, and any remaining employees above 700 are billed according to the price of product 3001-3. ** Priced monthly with a period of performance of one (1) base year and four (4) option years. Line Item 0002 One-Time Software Implementation Set-Up and Training Fee: 30-Day The information identified above is intended to be descriptive, not restrictive and to indicate the quality of the supplies/services that will be satisfactory. It is the responsibility of the interested source to demonstrate to the government that the interested parties can provide the supplies/services that fulfill the required specifications. If you are interested and are capable of providing the required labor management software solution of supplies/services, please provide the requested information as well as the information indicated below. Response to this notice should include company name, address, point of contact, size of business pursuant to the following questions: (1) Please indicate the size status and representations of your business, such as but not limited to: Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business (SDVOSB), Veteran Owned Small Business (VOSB), Hubzone, Woman Owned Small Business (WOSB), Large Business, etc. (2) Is your company considered small under the NAICS code identified under this RFI? (3) Are you the manufacturer or distributor of the items being referenced above (or equivalent product/solution)? What is the manufacturing country of origin of these items? (4) If you re a small business and you are an authorized distributor/reseller for the items identified above (or equivalent product/solution), do you alter; assemble; modify; the items requested in any way? If you do, state how and what is altered; assembled; modified? (5) Does your company have an FSS contract with GSA or the NAC or are you a contract holder with NASA SEWP or any other federal contract? If so, please provide the contract type and number. (6) If you are an FSS GSA/NAC or NASA SEWP contract holder or other federal contract holder, are the referenced items/solutions available on your schedule/contract? (7) Please provide general pricing for your products/solutions for market research purposes. (8) Please submit your capabilities with regard to the requirements described herein and any information pertaining to equal to items to establish capabilities for planning purposes? *** Submissions addressing Section (8) should show clear, compelling and convincing*** evidence that all equal to items" meet all required salient characteristics. Responses to this notice shall be submitted via email to edward.lyke@va.gov. Telephone responses will not be accepted. Any inquires or responses must be received no later than Monday, 09-20-2021 at 1:00pm EST. If a solicitation is issued it shall be announced at a later date, and all interested parties must respond to that solicitation announcement separately from the responses to this request for information. Responses to this notice are not a request to be added to a prospective offeror list or to receive a copy of the solicitation.