Graduate Medical Education (Notice of Intent to Sole Source)

INTRODUCTION: THIS IS A PRE-SOLICITATION NON-COMPETITIVE (NOTICE OF INTENT) SYNOPSIS TO AWARD A CONTRACT OR PURCHASE ORDER WITHOUT PROVIDING FOR FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION (INCLUDING BRAND-NAME). The National Institutes of Health (NIH), Clinical Center (CC), Office of Purchasing and Contracts (OPC) on behalf of the Office of Clinical Research Training and Medical Education (OCRTME) intends to negotiate and award a contract without providing for full and open competition (Including brand-name) to: Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) 401 N Michigan Ave., Suite 2000 Chicago, IL 60611-4206 UNITED STATES NORTH AMERICAN INDUSTRY CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM (NAICS) CODE: The NAICS Code for the intended procurement is 611310 - Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools. The Small Business Size Standard for the aforementioned NAICS is $30.0 million in annual receipts to be considered a Small Business. STATUTORY AUTHORITY: The statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition for this requirement is 10 U.S.C.2304(c)(1), 41 U.S.C.3304(a)(1), and FAR 6.302-1, Only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements. In accordance with FAR 6.302-1 (a) (2), When the supplies or services required by the agency are available from only one responsible source, or, for DoD, NASA, and the Coast Guard, from only one or a limited number of responsible sources, and no other type of supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements, full and open competition need not be provided for. The referenced statutory authority is being cited as justification for this sole source request. GENERAL INFORMATION: BACKGROUND The NIH Clinical Center is the sponsoring institution at the National Institutes of Health responsible for the administrative support and oversight of graduate medical education programs designed to train physicians, recruited through a competitive nation-wide search process, currently in a total of 18 nationally recognized medical/surgical specialties. These graduate medical education programs provide prescribed structured, standardized clinical and research training experiences to these physicians that permits their certification as specialists in a recognized medical or surgical field by the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS), a national organization that has established a process for verifying the competence of individual physicians in such recognized medical or surgical specialty fields. However, the prescribed standards and program structure required for the training for physicians in a given medical or surgical specialty field are developed and verified, both for training programs and institutions which sponsor those training programs, through a national process of accreditation established by another organization, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), located in Chicago, Illinois. The ACGME is an independent, not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) organization that accredits approximately 865 sponsoring institutions (such as the NIH Clinical Center), and approximately 12,000 residency programs in 157 specialties or subspecialties that educate about 145,000 residents nationally. Its mission is to improve health care and population health by assessing and advancing the quality of physician education and training through the process of accreditation. SCOPE Graduate medical education training programs and those institutions that sponsor medical or surgical training programs in a recognized specialty field, such as the NIH Clinical Center, are expected to achieve and maintain accreditation by the ACGME in order to permit training program graduates to be certified by the ABMS. It should be noted that those graduate medical education programs and sponsoring institutions that are not accredited by the ACGME are not recognized as providing the required training that permits physicians to be certified as medical or surgical specialists by the ABMS. Thus, physicians who complete specialty training in non-ACGME accredited programs, with rare exception, are not eligible for certification by the ABMS, and are not considered bona fide medical or surgical specialists by health care delivery organizations or academic medical centers throughout the United States. Finally, many states require completion of an ACGME-accredited training program before granting a license to practice medicine and surgery. Thus, accreditation of both individual graduate medical education programs, and the NIH Clinical Center as a sponsor of graduate medical education on the NIH campus, by the ACGME is essential for the NIH Clinical Center and the NIH to meet its mission of training highly competent (i.e., ABMS certified) and qualified physician-scientists and clinician-investigators in the recognized specialty fields of medicine or surgery. REQUIREMENTS The Contractor shall accredit the NIH Clinical Center at the National Institutes of Health as an institutional sponsor for graduate medical education nationally and provide requisite accreditation services for each of the 18 individual post-MD graduate medical education training programs supported by Institutes and Centers within the NIH Intramural Research Program, under the sponsorship of the NIH Clinical Center. PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE The period of performance for this requirement shall consist of a Base Period of twelve (12) months and one (1) one (1) year Option Period as is listed below: BASE PERIOD: January 01, 2021 to December 31, 2021 OPTION PERIOD #1: January 01, 2022 to December 31, 2022 CLOSING STATEMENT: This synopsis is not a request for competitive proposals. However, interested parties may identify their interest and capability to respond to this notice. Responses to this notice shall contain sufficient information to establish the interested parties' bona-fide capabilities for fulfilling the requirement. The following information shall be included: Organization Name and Mailing Address Organizational Point of Contact (Include Telephone Number and E-mail Address) CAGE Code and DUNS Number Business Size Website Address Title your response with - Notice of Intent for NIH/CC/OCRTME for Graduate Medical Education Tailored Capability Statements addressing the particulars of this effort, with appropriate documentation supporting claims of organizational and staff capability. If significant subcontracting or teaming is anticipated in order to deliver technical capability, organizations should address the administrative and management structure of such arrangements. All offerors must have an active registration in the System for Award Management (SAM) www.sam.gov. A determination by the Government not to compete this proposed contract based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. The information received will normally be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether to proceed on a non-competitive basis or to conduct a competitive procurement. All responses must be received by Monday, December 21, 2020 by 12:00 p.m. (EDT). Send responses electronically to Anthony Q. Hawley (Supervisory Contract Specialist) at anthony.hawley@nih.gov. Responses received after this date and time will not be reviewed. All responsible sources may submit a capability statement, proposal, or quotation, which shall be considered by the agency.