System for Quality Improvement Data (SQUID)

Intent to Sole Source-Carahsoft

CMS intends to issue a sole source firm fixed price contract to Carahsoft of 11493 Sunset Hills Road Reston, Virginia 20190 in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation FAR 6.303-1(d)) Only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements, 41 U.S.C. 3304(a)(1).

Carahsoft is the only selling agent and Government aggregator of the Qualtrics Experience Management System license. The 12th Scope of the NQIIC program started in November 2019 and ends in November 2024. Not continuing with this contractor and the Qualtrics technology solution, will expose higher risks for program disruption and lapses in current workflow that would negatively impact the achievement of program objectives for Nursing Homes and communities. The knowledge and skills gained by the current team will be very difficult to replace at this point in the program. In addition, there will be significant cost implications if CMS attempts to transition the work during this time, and would include re-development of the various data collection and visualization tools and re-establishment of the application programming interface (API) between CMS and the contractors which could take more than 6 months.

The current contract satisfies a critical need for CMS to have report-based services utilizing data analytics. Support services from Carahsoft for Qualtrics are provided by a team of data and project management experts who have the necessary technical knowledge and experience to configure the system to meet the data needs of CMS. The Qualtrics implementation team is comprised of the Technical Account Mangers, Program Architect, and Technical Consultants. The team is highly specialized to support the Qualtrics system and they maintain the appropriate security and technical certifications. Over the past couple of years, the team has gained valuable understanding of how the quality improvement program works; insights about working with various internal and external stakeholders, and served as creators/editors of the various data tools that are actively being used by CMS. Not having the team continue with the work will lead to loss of these essential knowledge, disruption of current workflows and can lead to delays in implementation of new data tools that support the quality improvement program. This can result in significant and unnecessary delays in the provision of quality improvement support provided to various healthcare facilities, particularly to mobilize the contractors for high priority health concerns as identified by CMS.

In addition, a change in the technology platform will lead to more cost to reconfigure the data reporting structure of the contractors and the data tracking mechanisms of CMS. Maintaining the necessary technical expertise to manage the Qualtrics Experience Management system licenses through Carahsoft, who is the sole selling agent and Government aggregator of the license will ensure the system will meet legislative demands required by the program as well as ensure the system can be ran to collect, attribute, analyze, and synthesize data from a range of sources and generate meaningful reports, dashboards and insights to allow for ingestion, access, management, storage and exchange of data between CMS and all NQIIC TO awardees and support contractors.

This notice of intent is not a request for competitive quotes. However, interested parties may identify their interest and capability to respond to the requirement and submit responses with the subject line "Special Notice #231297 System for Quality Improvement Data (SQUID) by 10:00APM on 08/01/2023 to: dqcs_proposal_submission@cms.hhs.gov.  Responses received will be assessed; however, a determination by the Government not to compete the proposed procurement based upon responses received to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. 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 the System for Award Management. 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). Contracting Office POC: Sabrina.thompson1@cms.hhs.gov