U--CHPTER Training for triage personnel to respond to a VA community mass casualty event.

The Department of Veterans Affairs, Network Contracting Office 7, intends to negotiate a one (1) year sole-source contract with the MUSC Department of Medicine, 171 Ashley Avenue, Charleston, SC on or around July 1, 2015 to provide training for triage personnel to respond to a VA or community mass casualty event. MUSC Department of Medicine Center for Health Professional Training and Emergency Response (CHPTER) has been used since 2011 to provide VA personnel with the most current practice techniques and best continuity of training for the triage (sorting) of mass casualty victims in a VA (active threat, terrorism threat, etc) or community event. A five-hour 'all-hazards' training event to occur 4 times over the course of one year, training 25-35 personnel at a time. Our proposed education intervention combines didactics, small group exercises and a performance-based Mass Casualty Incident (MCI) training experience. Competency skill objectives (i.e., correctly triage "immediate" versus "delayed" patients) and competency domains (i.e., "Triage") will be measured to ensure that our proposed education intervention-including didactics, small group and a Mass Casualty Incident (MCI) exercise-conform to both objectives and domains. CHPTR Project Goals Charleston VAMC will develop a training project at the facility level that will: 1) provide VA health care professionals with the basic training necessary to respond to a disaster scenario; 2) improve VA health care professional knowledge, lesson retention and comfort level with handling a disaster and; 3) provide training necessary to save VA patient lives and maintain health care facility operations. The Center for Health Professional Training and Emergency Response (CHPTER) serves as Charleston's regional collaborative for emergency preparedness training. CHPTER's mission is to develop state of the art, performance-based EPT curricula utilizing existing resources of hospital, public health, private, governmental and non-governmental organization (NGO) coalitions. CHPTER's goal is to consolidate and improve existing EPT resources and ensure that patient care providers - defined broadly as any provider that may care for a patient during a disaster -- are prepared to save lives and remain safe during a disaster. (www.musc.edu/chpter) CHPTER has been actively training local health care providers in the Charleston region since 2009 and is the only training provider that consistently trains medical and non-medical personnel from various community providers (VA, university-based, private, NGO) on the same day. The CHPTER training "day" lasts approximately 5 hours. Following brief didactic and small group sessions, inter-professional teams of 4-6 trainees are observed in a simulator designed to recreate environmentally challenging multi-patient scenarios. Successful completion of 16 individual and 18 team performance objectives are assessed by trained observers. Prior to training, team members complete a 24-question knowledge assessment, a demographic survey and a comfort level self-assessment. The self-assessment is scored on a 0-100 analog scale with 0 = 'poor' and 100 = 'excellent.' Following training, trainees repeated the 24 question knowledge assessment, self-assessment and a course assessment. The Contractor possesses unique qualifications that require the use of the authority below. MUSC Department of Medicine Center for Health Professional Training and Emergency Response (CHPTER) training has been used by this organization in the past and the education team provides unique and useful triage information and hands-on training opportunities for VAMC staff. This teaching team is well known and respected in the Emergency Medicine field and since this training has been accomplished with many current VAMC members, using the same training program guarantees consistency in triage operations across the spectrum of health care providers. Accordingly, MUSC Department of Medicine is the only firm capable of providing the training and services described in Section 3 without the VHA experiencing substantial duplication of cost that could not be expected to be recovered through competition. NAICS Code: 611310 Colleges, Universities and Professional Schools (Size Standard $25.5 Million) This proposed procurement is for services for which the government intends to solicit and negotiate with only one source in accordance with FAR 6.302-1(b)(1)(i), Only One Responsible Source and no Other Supplies or Services will Satisfy Agency Requirements. This notice of intent is not a request for competitive quotes. However, interested parties may identify their interest and capability to respond to this requirement no later than June 4, 2015, 1:00 p.m. EDT. A determination by the Government not to compete this proposed contract based on responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. Point of Contact: Janica Francis-Hunter, Contract Specialist (Fax: +1 (555) 000-0000; e-mail: contact@example.gov)