Q--Programmer/Analyst-Health Services ResearchDevelopment

This is a SOURCES SOUGHT ANNOUNCEMENT ONLY. It is neither a solicitation announcement nor a request for proposals or quotes and does not obligate the Government to award a contract. Requests for a solicitation will not receive a response. Responses to this Sources Sought must be in writing. The purpose of this Sources Sought Announcement is for market research to make appropriate acquisition decisions and to gain knowledge of potential qualified Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Businesses, Veteran Owned Small Businesses, 8(a), HubZone and other Small Businesses interested and capable of performing the work. Documentation of technical expertise must be presented in sufficient detail for the Government to determine that your company possesses the necessary functional area expertise and experience to compete for this acquisition. Responses to this notice shall include the following: (a) company name b) address (c) point of contact (d) phone, fax, and email (e) DUNS number (f) Cage Code (g) Tax ID Number (h) Type of small business, e.g. Services Disabled Veteran Owned small Business, Veteran-owned small business, 8(a), HUBZone, Women Owned Small Business, Small disadvantaged business, or Small Business HUBZone business and (i) must provide a capability statement that addresses the organizations qualifications and ability to perform as a contractor for the work described below. Description: See Scope of Work below Important Information: The Government is not obligated to nor will it pay for or reimburse any costs associated with responding to this sources sought synopsis request. This notice shall not be construed as a commitment by the Government to issue a solicitation or ultimately award a contract, nor does it restrict the Government to a particular acquisition approach. The Government will in no way be bound to this information if any solicitation is issued. Currently a total set-aside for Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business firms is anticipated. However, if response by Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business firms proves inadequate, an alternate set-aside or full and open competition may be determined. No sub-contracting opportunity is anticipated. The North American Classification System (NAICS) code for this acquisition is 541720 ($6.5 million). Notice to Potential Offerors: All Offerors who provide goods or services to the United States Federal Government must be registered in the Central Contractor Registration (CCR located on the web at www.ccr.gov). It is desirable that any Offeror to have completed their business Online Representations and Certifications Application (ORCA). Additionally, all Service Disabled Veteran Owned Businesses or Veteran Owned Businesses who respond to a solicitation on this project must be registered with the Department of Veterans Affairs Center for Veterans Enterprise VetBiz Registry located at http://vip.vetbiz.gov. All interested Offerors should submit information by mail or ground carrier to: Dept. of Veterans Affairs, James J. Peters Medical Center, VISN 3/Network Acquisition and Logisitics, #10N3-NAL-3, Bronx, NY 10468 or by email to contact@example.gov. All information submissions to be marked Attn: Marla Jacobson, Contracting Officer and should be received no later than 3:00 pm EDST on September 13, 2007. Responses are due BY 4:00 PM Eastern Standard Time (EST) FRIDAY September 7, 2007. After review of the responses to this announcement, the Government intends to proceed with the acquisition and a formal synopsis and subsequent solicitation announcement will be published. The Governments intent is to solicit a Firm Fixed Price, Best Value Procurement. Introduction to Scope of Work The contractor will work for various principal investigators (PIs) who are under the VA New Jersey Healthcare System Center for Healthcare Knowledge Management, which is a VA Central Office Health Services Research Development (HSRD) Research Enhancement Award Program. (REAP) The VA HSRD Projects covered in this SOW are REA (P) 03-021, and Investigator Initiated RIIR 05-016 Health care use, outcomes and costs of co-morbid diabetes and depression, IAE 05-255, Chronic physical and mental illness care in women veterans The REAP funding supports general activities of data acquisition, merger and cleaning of data bases; the IIR involves creation of specific subsets of subjects for analyses. Requirements The contractor will be responsible for constructing large data repositories of veterans with and without diabetes (over 8,000,000 subjects) from multiple VA data sources (pharmacy, laboratory, claims data) and Medicare data. Additionally, the contractor will be responsible for: o Developing longitudinal data bases o Developing multiple analytic data sets for analysis, model Charleston, ACG and other risk adjustment strategies o Analyzing of longitudinal A1C values as a measure of quality preliminary work o Creating Data sets, QC, or data for previous years o Conducting initial bivariate analysis o Coordination of modeling and more complex analysis with statisticians and methodologists o Working with PIs to construct analytic data sets, and, in some instances, conduct statistical analyses under their direction. o Writing (summarize) the output suitable for manuscripts and grants in a competitive, deadline driven research organization. The contractor or contractor employee: " Must a US Citizen " Must be proficient in English " Must have completed a Masters Degree or higher " Must be eligible to be credentialed by the VA New Jersey Health Care System to conduct research " Must have 5 years experience and comfort working with SAS (Base, STAT, SQL, Perlscript), STATA, SPSS " Ability to perform logistic and multivariate regression, imputation procedures, advanced statistical techniques used in longitudinal analyses of large data sets, such as factor analysis, propensity analysis, hierarchical linear modeling under direction of principal investigator (s) " Minimum of 3 years experience working with VA and/or large Health Care Plan datasets including inpatient, outpatient, pharmacy, laboratory, enrollment and cost information " Minimum of 3 years experience working with CMS datasets (Part A, Part B) " Minimum of 3 years working with large datasets (i.e., million subjects and million transactions, such as, visits, lab tests) " Working knowledge of medical terminology " Minimum of 3 years experience with Microsoft Office applications (Excel, Access, PowerPoint) " Must have and be able to demonstrate strong written skills as evidenced by co-authorship of manuscripts and operational reports " Must have and be able to demonstrate strong oral communications and presentation skills " Experience and comfort working in a multi-disciplinary milieu (clinicians, statisticians, programmers) Timeliness requirements Work is consistent with Center deadlines for grants, manuscripts, and reporting Reporting requirements Data will be transmitted to VA New Jersey Health Care System (VANJHCS) through downloads and encrypted DVDS. Facility data All equipment and supplies that are needed for the performance of services will be provided by VANJHCS Place of performance The contractor will provide services at VANJHCS East Orange Campus located at: 385 Tremont Avenue, East Orange, New Jersey 07018, Bldg 1 Room 11-158. Exchange of Data Data analysis will be conducted on site in accordance with IT requirements. Billing Full Time Equivalent (FTE) based. The contractor will submit a monthly signed time sheet of hours worked, indicating date, time started, time finished, hours worked less lunch period, and total hours. The time sheet will be verified and signed by the Principal Investigator and/or REAP Director. The contractor will be expected to work between 10-40 hours per week, with most hours occurring within a CORE of 9:00a.m to 6:00p.m, Monday-Friday. While flexibility is permitted, the contractor/contractor employee is expected to be sensitive to the data analyses needs of the investigators (e.g. deadlines) with appropriate (2 week) notice. Payments FTE based - Reimbursement will be based upon number of on-site hours worked. Payment will be made based upon verification of hours worked by COTR and/or his/her designee. Payment is based upon condition that contractor is in compliance with all contract requirements, demonstrated by the monitoring methods as described herein. Penalty for non-performance If services do not conform to contract requirements, the Government may require the contractor to perform the services again in conformity with contract requirements, at no additional cost to the Government, if appropriate. When the defects in services cannot be corrected by re-performance, the Government may: o Require the Contractor to take necessary action to ensure that future performance conforms to contract requirements; and o Reduce the contract price to reflect the reduced value of the services performed. Reimbursement method FTE based - Reimbursement will be based on documentation of hours worked. No periods of leave or mealtime are reimbursable under this contract. Progress and Compliance The contractor will meet with the PIs on a daily to weekly basis to review outputs requested. Any incidents of Contractor noncompliance as evidenced by the monitoring procedures will be reported immediately to the Contracting Officer. Notes and Other Information None