This is a Small Business Sources Sought notice. This is NOT a solicitation for proposals, proposal abstracts, or quotations. The purpose of this notice is to obtain information regarding: (1) the availability and capability of qualified small business sources; (2) whether they are small businesses; HUBZone small businesses; service-disabled, veteran-owned small businesses; 8(a) small businesses; veteran-owned small businesses; woman-owned small businesses; or small disadvantaged businesses; and (3) their size classification relative to the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code for the proposed acquisition. Your responses to the information requested will assist the Government in determining the appropriate acquisition method, including whether a set-aside is possible. An organization that is not considered a small business under the applicable NAICS code should not submit a response to this notice. Background. Federal Occupational Health (FOH), a component of the Program Support Center (PSC) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), provides occupational health programs for federal employees. FOH provides various occupational health and related health services to both HHS and other Federal agencies. FOH authority to provide such services is found in 5 USC § 7901. The intent of the Statute is to promote and maintain the physical and mental fitness of federal employees in the workforce. The employee occupational health services authorized under 5 USC §7901 are performed by FOH as centralized services through the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Service and Supply Fund (SSF) authorized at 42 USC 231. The Continuing Appropriations Act, 2021, and Other Extensions Act, Pub. L. No. 116-159, div. C, title I, sec. 2107 (Oct 1, 2020) states that the SSF Statute “shall be applied with respect to any fiscal year as though the phrase ‘central services’ referred to central services for any Federal agency.” This provides specific transfer authority for the provision of occupational health services under 5 U.S.C. §7901 for both HHS employees and employees of another federal agency. Section 216 of the Department of Health and Human Services Appropriation Act, 2006 (FY06 HHS Appropriations Act), Public L. No. 109-149, title II, 119 STAT. 2844 (Dec. 30, 2005), which is a permanent provision of law, provides FOH authority to enter into personal services contracts for the limited purpose of employing “professional management/administrative and occupational health professionals.” To fulfill interagency orders for federal occupational health services which require the use of professional management/administrative and occupational health professionals, this effort will be established as a personal services contract. The work performed under this effort will require the Contractor to be in a uniform location, use Government equipment, adhere to Government policies and procedures, perform inspections, accept work, and execute management functions under relatively continuous supervision and control of a Government officer or employee. The Contractor will be required to furnish all necessary personnel, services, and otherwise do all the functions necessary for or incidental to the performance of the work as set forth in the attached draft requirements listed below. FOH provides standardized occupational health services to federal customer agencies through written Interagency Agreements (IAAs). Standardized occupation health services, including clinical services delivery, expert medical consultation tailored to a particular federal agency’s occupational health service needs, wellness and health promotion services, behavioral health services, and environmental health and safety services. Additional background information may be found at https://www.hhs.gov/about/agencies/asa/foh/index.html. IT is a significant enabler to the FOH mission. The Contractor will be responsible for supporting and maintaining several systems and security applications that are used to manage and perform work within FOH. These systems support critical business and program activities. The Contractor’s primary role will be to support FOH Information Technology (IT) services and infrastructure. This includes adherence to mandated IT requirements, as well as support for FOH service delivery and staff in the effective and efficient performance of their work. Attached is a high-level description of FOH IT Systems describing system and application knowledge, skills, and abilities that may used in finalizing the overall requirements for the solicitation. Purpose and Objectives The purpose of this contract is to obtain a full range of qualified IT personnel to support the mission of FOH and the delivery of occupational health services to federal employees. This includes performing day-to-day operations for FOH IT systems, as well as maintenance of those systems and security applications that are used to manage and perform work within FOH. These systems support critical business and program activities. This effort includes, but is not limited to, programming, help desk, training, troubleshooting, hardware, and software administration for the FOH IT systems and applications as well as supporting infrastructure. The scope of this work effort is to provide, maintain, and improve the current FOH IT systems as well as support any potential future enhancements or responses to emerging IT requirements The objective is to provide for effective communications and flexible systems that allow for the management of agreements and the supporting services. The intent is these services will aid in management of the revenue stream for the entire organization. The Contractor will be required to provide administrative, technical, and engineering staff support to develop, implement, and maintain all elements of the assigned FOH IT Infrastructure. The Contractor will be required to perform all service delivery responsibilities in compliance with all Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) IT standards, direction, and guidance, as well as other application service delivery documents as directed by the Government. The Contractor will be responsible for the efficient and cost-effective operations and maintenance of FOH IT Systems to ensure technical performance and continual improvement in customer satisfaction, minimize the cost of operating and maintaining the current IT environment while meeting or exceeding performance targets, and achieve high availability, reliability, and IT security of the overall FOH IT environment. The Contractor will be required to maintain a framework that enables disciplined management and execution of changes to FOH IT Systems and the configuration management of those changes, enable systematic and proactive planning to ensure high availability, reliability, and responsiveness of FOH IT Systems while adapting to and implementing frequent changes, and working within a quality control environment that encourages and reinforces appropriate testing of new capabilities to prevent adverse impact to operations or the user’s experience during system modification and/or upgrades. The Contractor will be required to provide superior end-user service delivery through a flexible and responsive delivery methodology capable of quickly and effectively responding to new IT service needs and mission requirements, provide customer-focused service delivery performance targets that align all IT services with FOH requirements and needs, and enable FOH with reliable, highly available, secure and efficient IT service support. Capability Statement/Information Sought Please provide capability to support the following requirements as described accounting for the above Background Information, Purpose and Objectives, and the attached FOH IT System Overview document. Offer any recommended suggestions, clarifications, or industry considerations that may be used by the Government in finalizing their requirements for formal solicitation. Do not include any proprietary information. FOH IT System Operations Requirements – Approximately 60% Service Operation processes, techniques, and disciplines will be required to coordinate and carry out the activities required to deliver and manage services at agreed upon levels of service as directed by the Government. The Contractor will be required to implement processes to ensure ongoing management and control of the day-to-day activities and technology that is used to deliver and support services (e.g., infrastructure monitoring and reporting tools, utilities). The Contractor will also be required to develop processes for the systematic monitoring of service delivery performance, assessing metrics, and gathering and analyzing data collected during service operations and reporting results to the Government. It is anticipated that the above will include Program and Project Management; Documentation and Data Management; Asset Management and Tracking; Database Administration; Database Architectures; System Administration; Help Desk for end users; and Configuration Management. FOH IT System Sustainment Requirements – Approximately 25% The Contractor will be required to design, develop, test and package systems and software changes as well as provide problem resolutions for the existing systems. The Contractor will be required to maintain the current baseline of the system and provide software change and problem fixes to these baselines as required. The Contractor will be required to provide to the Government all developed, modified, or converted source modules, processes, programs, scripts, operating instructions, databases, system fields, documentation, test files and test conditions used to develop each approved system change request. Specific tasks may include the following: Maintain existing systems and environments in accordance with disciplined engineering practices and sustain applications, databases, and interfaces in compliance with applicable standards. Support system sustainment activities to include maintaining existing legacy systems and environments and to sustain applications, databases, and interfaces. Provide application services to support, maintain, and operate systems or services. It is anticipated that the above will include Regression Testing; Product/System Integration Testing; System Performance Testing; User Acceptance Testing; Security Services (i.e. patching vulnerabilities). FOH IT System Engineering Requirements – Approximately 15% The Contractor will be required to provide systems engineering for the analysis, design, integration, installation, testing, and life-cycle support of existing systems associated with the delivery of infrastructure capabilities. The Contractor will be required to use commercial best practices for system engineering processes in planning, architecting, requirements development and management, design, technical management and control, technical reviews, technical measurements, integrated risk management, configuration management, data management, interface management, decision analysis, systems management, inspections and maintenance, sources of supply and repair, and test and evaluation, verification, and validation. It is anticipated that the above will include Lifecycle Systems Engineering; Telecommunication System Support; and Architecture and System Design. Information submission instructions. Questions regarding the contents of this Sources Sought shall be submitted via email to:
[email protected] no later than 10:00am EST on February 28, 2022 . Phone calls will not be accepted. The Government reserves the right to respond to some, all, or none of the questions that will be submitted. Capability statements and responses shall address all of the information listed under “Capability statement/information sought”. Capability statements and responses shall be submitted via email to
[email protected] no later than 10:00am EST on March 9, 2022 in the form of a “white paper.” The subject line for the email heading shall be “FOH IT Staffing Support - PSC290438". Responses should be limited to no more than ten (10) single spaced pages exclusive of marketing slicks or published information available at time of release of the Sources Sought request. Page size is 8.5 x 11 inches with 1-inch margins. Cover page, table of contents, and cover letter will be excluded from the page limit. Text must be a minimum font size/style of 10-point Times New Roman. Tables must be a minimum font size/style of 9-point in the Arial family. Graphics must be at minimum 8-point in the Arial family. Tables and Graphics may use the landscape format. All other text must use the portrait format. Responses to this Sources Sought should include a cover letter with the following information at a minimum: Sources Sought Number; Company’s Name; Company’s DUNS Number; Company Point of Contact, mailing address, telephone and fax numbers, and website address; Name, telephone number, and e-mail address of a company point of contact who has the authority and knowledge to clarify Sources Sought responses with government representatives; Business Size and Size Standard / Classification as validated via the System for Award Management (SAM). All respondents must be registered on SAM located at www.sam.gov; Multiple Award Schedule (MAS)s the services and/or products are offered on (General Services Administration (GSA), National Institutes of Health Information Technology Acquisition and Assessment Center (NITAAC), Solution for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP), etc.) and schedule information (Schedule #, Contract #, period of performance); Number of years in business; affiliated contractor agreement information: parent company, joint venture partners, and potential teaming partners. Would you need to or want to use a sub-contractor(s)? If yes, how many? Would you be able to justify MAS rates via survey data, or MAS plus survey data for rates not on schedule? Please identify your size classification relative to North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) for this Sources Sought. Include the socio-economic status; HUBZone small businesses; service-disabled, veteran-owned small businesses; 8(a) small businesses; veteran-owned small businesses; woman-owned small businesses; or small disadvantaged businesses in order to assist the government in determining the appropriate acquisition method, including whether a set-aside is possible. Disclaimer and Important Notes. This notice does not obligate the Government to award a contract or otherwise pay for the information provided in response. The Government reserves the right to use information provided by respondents for any purpose deemed necessary and legally appropriate. Any organization responding to this notice should ensure that its response is complete and sufficiently detailed to allow the Government to determine the organization’s qualifications to perform the work. Respondents are advised that the Government is under no obligation to acknowledge receipt of the information received or provide feedback to respondents with respect to any information submitted. After a review of the responses received, a pre-solicitation synopsis and solicitation may be published in GSA Advantage eBuy. However, responses to this notice will not be considered adequate responses to a solicitation. Confidentiality. No proprietary, classified, confidential, or sensitive information should be included in your response. The Government reserves the right to use any non-proprietary technical information in any resultant solicitation(s).