Patient Escort Services

The National Institutes of Health, Clinical Center is conducting a market survey/sources sought t help determine the availability and technical capability of qualified 8(a) firms capable of providing Patient Escort Services. This market survey/sources sought announcement is not a request for proposals and the Government is not committed to award a contract pursuant to this announcement. The information from this market research is for planning purposes and initiation of a solicitation to assist the Government in planning its acquisition strategy. The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code is 561210. The Clinical Center complex of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is a biomedical research hospital located in Bethesda, Maryland. The facility consists of 234 inpatient beds, 81-day hospital stations, over 20 outpatient clinics, diagnostic and treatment areas, and public waiting areas. Adjacent to the hospital facilities are research laboratories. The complex consists of three buildings: the Warren G. Magnuson Clinical Center (Magnuson Center), the Mark O. Hatfield Clinical Research Center and the Ambulatory Care Research Facility (ACRF). Together these three buildings represent approximately 3.5 million square feet of space. The Magnuson Center is research space and the bottom floors house some large departments that support patient care. The ACRF is a fourteen-floor structure, which houses outpatient clinics and research laboratories on twelve floors. The first and second levels of the ACRF houses clinical services including diagnostic radiology, nuclear medicine and PET, surgery, transfusion medicine and laboratory medicine. The Hatfield Center is a seven-story structure with a central large open atrium. Inpatient units are on levels 1, 3, 5 and 7. Levels 2, 4, and 6 are interstitial mechanical space except for small clusters of offices. The Clinical Center is a unique facility in that all patients are on a research protocol and over 50% of patients are from across the country and are often here for extended stays. The needs of this type of patient population differ from a community or academic medical center that draws from a local based population. Patients may be more anxious, often they are alone, or do not have as many visitors, or family members for support. That has made caring for the patient a value that is very highly held in the Clinical Center. In the delivery of outstanding customer service, the hospital looks to the patient Escort and Messenger Services as one of the - team departments along with the other front-line patient care services. Some of the other departments on this team are: Hospitality Services, Admissions, Phlebotomy, Radiology, Nuclear Medicine, and Heart Station, to name a few. These are the departments that are - first touch for our patients early on in the admissions process and they make a lasting impression of the Clinical Center. From 30-35% of the transport - calls responded to are fro patient transport. This makes it a critical component of the Clinical Center's effort to provide outstanding front-line patient service. The Clinical Center has a requirement to provide Patient Escort Services with the hospital facility. The scope of work includes but not limited to: (1) Transport of patients, which range from very sick and incapacitated to patients who are ambulatory but need minor assistance; (2)Transporting clinical specimens, research specimens, blood products, - e sized medical oxygen gas cylinders, pharmacy items, patient luggage and some paper products. The services require twenty-four (24) hours a day, seven (7) days a week. In addition, the services include transporting (pick up and delivery for all locations) medical records Monday through Friday, after 8 AM, weekends and holidays. The contractor providing the services must have extensive experience in providing Patient Escort Services in a healthcare setting with particular emphasis in working in a research healthcare environment. The offerors responses must demonstrate their expertise in ALL of the following items. Please note that failure to specifically demonstrate capability to provide the required services in your response to this market survey may affect the Government's review of industry's ability to perform the services. The vendor's responses shall be in sufficient detail to allow the Government to assess the capability of your firm. The vendor response must specifically address each of the following areas: 1. How do you determine that employees are proficient in speaking and understanding the English language in the hiring process; 2. What process do you use for on-the-job training of new employees; 3. What specific competencies are employees being trained on; 4. How do you monitor the competencies of the transport employee at the point of service; 5. How do you hold employees accountable for customer service performance; 6. do you have any process in place for reviewing the cost efficiency of the contract structure with the client at regular intervals; 7. How do you utilize an effective staffing structure of full time, part time and on call staff to keep contract costs down; 8. Describe the role and decision making authority of the on-site Program Manager; 9. How do you propose to manage the dispatch system and capture data for tracking; The vendor responses shall also include any other specific and relevant information related to the requirements of this project that will enable the Government to determine capabilities of the company to perform the specialized requirements described in this market survey. Interested organizations must demonstrate and document in any response submitted, to this market survey extensive experience with and the ability to perform all of the specialized requirements elsewhere described. The Government will not award any contractual agreement based upon the vendor responses to this announcement. The Government shall not assume any costs for preparing or submitting any information in response to the market survey or the Government's use of the information. Any proprietary information should be clearly identified as - proprietary information. Vendors must send written capability responses by July 31, 2009 to the Contracting Officer, Deborah Britton at the following email dbritton@cc.nih.gov For any questions, please contact Deborah Britton via email.