R--Contract for the implementation, installation, and support of the Nurse Scheduling System.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: THE CLOSING DATE FOR THE QUALIFICATION REQUIREMENT HAS BEEN CHANGED FROM THE CLOSE OF BUSINESS ON JULY 10, 2009 TO THE CLOSE OF BUSINESS ON JULY 14, 2009. ALL PERSPECTIVE OFFERORS MUST HAVE THEIR DEMONSTRATIONS PROVIDED BY THAT TIME IN ORDER TO BE QUALIFIED FOR AN AWARD. BACKGROUND: The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Veterans Integrated Service Network 10 (VISN 10) has the need for a contractor to furnish an automated scheduling system and the requisite hardware necessary for its implementation and maintenance within the VA's nursing workforce. The software will must be able to have the flexibility to be customized based on the needs of the various VA facilities located within the VISN, must be capable of predicting workload demands for clinical care, and have the ability to generate reports to optimize staffing levels. COVERAGE AREA: Proposed systems must be able to reach the VA Medical Centers and all associated facilities located within VISN 10, including but not limited to: The Dayton VA Medical Center, located at 4100 West Third Street, Dayton, OH 45428; The Cincinnati VA Medical Center, located at 3200 Vine St., Cincinnati, OH, 45220; The Chillicothe VA Medical Center, located at 17273 State Route 104, Chillicothe, OH 45601; The Chalmers P. Wylie Veterans Clinic, located at 420 North James Road, Columbus, OH 43219; and The Cleveland VA Medical Center, located at 10000 Brecksville Road, Brecksville, OH 44141. SET-ASIDE INFORMATION: This procurement is a 100% set-aside for a Service-Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) Concern. The SDVOSB must be small under the relevant North American Industrial Classification Standard (NAICS) code and MUST be registered and verified in the following websites: http://www.vip.vetbiz.gov, http://ccr.gov, and http://orca.bpn.gov and Vets 100 to be eligible for award. Offerors MUST ensure registration in these websites are accurate and have not expired prior to the solicitation due date. This procurement shall be procured and awarded using the commercial item procedures. The applicable NAICS Code is 541511. The contract value is estimated to be approximately $500,000.00. IMPORTANT NOTICE: This procurement will have a qualification requirement associated with its award. ALL contractors seeking to place an offer or bid for this requirement MUST BE PRE-QUALIFIED BY THE CONTRACTING OFFICER in order to be eligible for an award. To be added to the 'Pre-Qualified List' contractors must demonstrate that they can provide software that can meet the following requirements in a presentation format, either via the internet or a pre-recorded median (CD, Video, Windows Media File, etc.), that is not to exceed two (2) hours in length: 1. Help screen shall be available to all levels of users. System is user friendly; designed for all personnel's levels of computer skills, novice to moderate working knowledge, and maneuvers straightforwardly and simply amongst modules and platforms. 2. The software shall be able to identify minimum and maximum staffing levels, based on HPPD (hours per patient day) and census. In other words, based on the HPPD for that level of unit and the census, the software should be able to tell the supervisor if the unit is over staffed, staffed appropriately or under staffed. In addition, it should be able to show the manager that the variance is by either hours and FTE (full time equivalent). 3. The software shall be able to manage any combination of shift length; float staff; individual preferences, on-call and rotating shifts. For example, it should be able to manage both 8 hour and 12 hour tours for one person to make 80 hours/pay period. 4. The application shall track changes to the schedule by date, time, user who made the change and rationale for the change. For example, if a person works unscheduled OT (over-time), the software should track who approved the overtime, who entered the overtime, why the overtime was scheduled (i.e.: to cover call-ins), if the OT was mandatory or voluntary, when it was entered, when it was worked and where it was worked. 5. The application shall manage staff qualifications, certifications and licensures. For example, reports should be available whenever a user has a certification nearing expiration. In addition, if two staff plan to work for each other, then the software should verify they are qualified to work for each other. If they are not, the program should reject the exchange. 6. The application shall provide diagnostic tools such as informational messages, warning screens, error messages, and helpful hints, etc. 7. The application will save and close when encountering a fatal error. 8. The application shall provide for multiple, simultaneous users with a locking mechanism to prevent concurrent update of the same contents/field. To explain, when using Microsoft Access, it does not seem to handle multiple users well and will lock the program up and/or override what was entered when two people try to edit/enter the same field and record. 9. The software shall be compatible with existing VA hardware/software. 10. The application shall provide the utility to import and export data (to Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Access, Proclarity, and Vista - specifically employee information to populate the software and pt. Classifications). An interface with the Human Resources/Payroll application would be highly desirable. For an import example, it would be preferable that a continuous/daily download occurs that adds new employees and deactivates employees who are no longer employees in the scheduling software. For an export example, we have a program called Decision Support System that will need to have reports exported to their system from the scheduling software to track the agency workload. 11. The software shall generate email reminders* and notifications per site set up to both employees and supervisors (i.e. time to approve schedule, sign-off on schedule, Self-Scheduling open for Pay Period 10, Self-Scheduling closed for PP10, etc.) * The user will have the ability to chose where the notification is e-mailed - Vista and/or Microsoft Outlook. 12. The program shall have a mechanism that locks the schedule to further changes after the supervisor has signed off on the schedule by users below a certain access level. 13. The program shall support the creation of unlimited business rules, templates and parameters. 14. By law, an RN can not work more than 12 hours in a 24 hour period nor 60 hours in a 7 day period. The program will have the capability to alert the supervisor before an individual exceeds those parameters. If it is exceeded, then the program will record the approving official's name, date and a justification for each occurrence. 15. The program shall support partial and total self-scheduling, preference-based scheduling, and cyclical scheduling. To clarify, the employee needs to be able to request and bid for shifts with direct access to the program. 16. The program shall provide the ability to print the schedules to be signed for time certification. To clarify, since the program will not interface with PAID (Vista) the time keeper will still need to keep hard copies of the schedule and enter the schedule into Vista. 17. The program shall provide predefined reports and graphs especially for productivity. Some of the reports are leave usage, agency use, overtime use, sick leave use and workload efficiency and based on the user selected date range. 18. The program shall provide multiple security levels in terms of who can view, create, update, approve, delete, and create reports based on their position/level of access. For example, the nurse manager will approve the schedule, the evening/night supervisor can override the schedule to offer OT to an employee and the coordinator can override any entry. In addition, staff end users will be able to view only their records. 19. The program shall provide the ability to store data and documents throughout their life cycle and be able to archive and retrieve information. For example, one of the requirements of the VA is to save three years worth of data and possibly five years for patient related data. The program will need to be able to store all aspects of the data for at least that amount of time before it is archived. After this time period, the program should be able to archive the data for longer storage and then access it if necessary. 20. The vendor shall present a contingency plan/backup plan for when the server ceases to function or the connection to the server is severed. A good example of this is the Bar Code Mediation Administration program. It downloads all the medications for the patient on a local stand-alone at near real time for access when the server is unavailable. 21. The program shall be able to track and trend census data by unit and facility. One of the things we noted reviewing our last two year trending of census data is that the overall length of stay and bed days of care are going down, but on two of our units it is going up, which has caused us to adjust our staffing. Without census data available and trending for each unit, we may not have known a shift in resources was needed. 22. The program shall have the ability to provide simulation of schedules using what-if scenarios and alternative scheduling to better assist the nurse manager in making the most cost effective decisions. 23. The program shall be network (VISN) wide. Recently it has been proposed to put together a VA traveling nursing corp. If this done, the software needs to be able to identify vacant FTE that could be filled by one of these pool persons anywhere within the network. 24. The program shall be able to generate budget reports and graphs based on GS (LPNs and NAs) and Title 38 (RNs) pay scales, grade/step and time. The budget reports and graphs need to include salary costs (including adjustments for benefits), overtime costs, agency/contract costs, float costs (staff being pulled to/from home unit), sitter costs, and unscheduled sick leave costs. 25. The program shall be able to manage overtime offers based on defined criteria (seniority). For example, the union requires the VA to equitable offer overtime to each employee who is interested. All uninterested employees need to be identified and left off the OT call list. From the interested employee list, when the employee was contacted, the result of the contact (no answer, declined, etc.), who contacted, when contacted and OT being offered needs to be recorded. This information also needs to be able to be printed by employee name and by OT offered with all the contacts before a replacement was found. 26. The vendor shall be able to provide technical support (on-line, telephone or on-call) 24 hours per day/7 days per week. All bidders will have until close of business (5:00 PM) on July 14, 2009 to provide their demonstrations, at which, time the listing will be closed. In order to schedule a time to provide a demonstration or to send in a prerecorded demonstration, offerors are asked to contact: Patty Slonaker, Nurse Program Analyst at the Dayton VA Medical Center at +1 (555) 000-0000 x3197 or contact@example.gov. Offerors will be notified promptly as to whether or not qualification has been attained or not. If enough responses have been received the solicitation documents will be posted on or about July 20, 2009. All responsible and pre-qualified offerors will be invited to submit an offer which shall be considered by the agency.