Health Information Technology (HIT) to assist the Social Security Administration (SSA) to obtain and manage structured electronic medical record (EMR) data.

This amendment is to publish the answers to questions received in response to the RFI and to extend the date for receipt of information to April 10, 2009 at 3:00 PM ET. The Social Security Administration (SSA) is conducting MARKET RESEARCH into use of Health Information Technology (HIT) to obtain structured electronic medical records (EMR) data. NO FORMAL SOLICITATION IS BEING ISSUED AT THIS TIME. Background In 1995, the Social Security Administration launched an effort to eliminate the paper processes being used at the agency. SSA goal is to store all unstructured data in repositories residing on the SSA mainframes. SSA currently receives medical information, in the form of images (paper scanned to TIFF images), from integrators and from our agency offices. This TIFF format electronic medical records (EMR) data is stored in our enterprise content repository for unstructured data and is used in processing SSA Disability Determination workloads. SSA applications supporting these workloads have limited ability to interpret and extract medical information from the TIFF EMR data. SSA and associated state employees must therefore view the TIFF EMR data in order to make a disability determination. In the past three years, the unstructured repository growth has accelerated, data access has been extended to Internet, and support for unstructured data has greatly expanded. SSA now operates one of the largest document management systems in the world, and unlike most other major enterprises, data captured or created throughout the history of Social Security is still critical to today's business processes. Description The Social Security Administration is currently involved in a pilot with the health care community to explore the SSA use of Health Information Technology (HIT) to obtain structured EMR data. SSA will be obtaining HIT data primarily from Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN). SSA is interested in receiving EMR data in structured text format, such as XML, to conform to HIT plus improve the efficiency of our disability processing. SSA believes the use of structured EMR data, as opposed to the use of unstructured (TIFF) data, has potential to improve the functionality of applications that process disability determinations. SSA anticipates that there will be a long period (years) when the Agency will be handling both old (unstructured) image data from legacy sources and the new structured EMR data from sources such as NHIN. As HIT data standards improve, SSA ability to make automated decisions using structured EMR data will increase. SSA is seeking to identify firms able to provide software and integration solutions that will allow the Agency to obtain and manage structured EMR data in our repositories. SSA seeks information on firms with demonstrated experience in the use of both structured EMR data and image EMR data in the same business processes and applications. Specifically, SSA is interested in software products and/or integration companies that have experience in the marketplace with structured EMR data both: - from the storage side (Repository), and - for the use of structured EMR data in business applications that need to interpret EMR data. Vendor Responses IT integrators that have assisted large, geographically dispersed organizations develop, deploy and operate an Enterprise Electronic Medical Records Repository architecture involving very large unstructured data environments supporting large numbers of end users are invited to submit information concerning their capabilities and past experience in performing those services. Software vendors with capabilities and experience integrating their solution into an existing system are also invited to submit information in response to this notice. All vendor responses should provide detailed accounts of: 1) The name of the customer company/organization to which the vendor provided the services. 2) A reference contact at the customer company/ organization (name, title, email, phone number). 3) A description of the customer company/ organization's repository architecture prior to the vendor's engagement 4) A description of what services the vendor provided to the customer company/ organization. 5) A description of the complexities, challenges, and duration of the engagement. 6) A description of the customer company/ organization's current repository architecture and how the customer company/ organization uses the current repository architecture to deliver services 7) A description and make up of the team that provided the services. 8) A rough order of magnitude (ROM) of the cost of the engagement. 9) If possible, information such as redacted copies of strategy documents and other deliverables which were produced during your engagements. Where Client agreements preclude providing even redacted copies of the requested information, vendors may substitute topic outlines or tables of content for the restricted deliverables. Respondents should indicate whether their services/products are available on GSA Federal Supply Schedules or any other Government-wide Agency Contract (GWAC). All responses must be submitted in an electronic format (compatible with MS Office 2003) via e-mail to the Contract Specialist. Faxed information will not be considered. The file size limitation for e-mail attachments is 5 megabytes. Simple marketing information, incomplete responses, or references to vendor websites will not be considered by the Government. Electronic responses must be received by April 10, 2009. Again: NO FORMAL SOLICITATION IS BEING ISSUED AT THIS TIME. The Government will not return any information submitted in response to this notice, nor will the Government pay for any information submitted in reply to this notice. Information submitted will be used in SSA market research efforts and for procurement planning purposes. The Government reserves the right to contact, or not contact, any party responding to this notice in order to obtain further information for market research purposes.