NOTICE OF INTENT TO SOLE SOURCE: DirectTrust Privacy and Security (P&S) Accreditation

This synopsis is hereby issued in accordance with FAR Part 5.203 and FAR 13. The purpose of this synopsis is to announce the Indian Health Service’s (IHS) intent to negotiate a Firm Fixed Price sole source contract with DirectTrust located at 1629 K Street NW, Suite 300 Washington, DC to perform a biennial Privacy and Security (P&S) accreditation.

Health care organizations that utilize DIRECT messaging, an ONC Transition of Care (TOC) requirement, are required to perform an independent DirectTrust Privacy and Security (P&S) assessment. DirectTrust provides the required biennial DirectTrust P&S accreditation. The DirectTrust accreditation is a requirement for a Healthcare participant or Health Information Service Provider (HISP) to participate in the secure DirectTrust, aka Direct Messaging, network of healthcare systems. These systems provide the framework of secure, encrypted, email between healthcare systems in a secure private network that is external to normal business email. Only members in good standing can participate and ensure the healthcare data is properly managed. To maintain the accreditation in good standing, and organization must pay an annual maintenance fee and also perform a biennial DirectTrust P&S accreditation or re-accreditation and pay for the fees for that service.

Only one (1) source DirectTrust is capable of fulfilling the Government’s requirement. Without the DirectTrust P&S accreditation and fees, IHS will lose the ability to meet the interoperability requirements required to maintain the ONC 2015 Edition Certification. IHS will lose the ability to meet the Conditions of Certification maintenance provisions under the ONC EHR certification program and will also not meet the health care requirements in the 21st Century Cures Act. This will result in IHS clinical facilities failure to meet the CMS requirements for using a certified electronic medical record system, and be subject to fines or penalities. IHS spent millions of dollars in software engineering, development, testing and certification testing to achieve this.

THIS NOTICE IS NOT A REQUEST FOR COMPETITIVE PROPOSALS, however, interested firms may submit a capability statement in response to the above requirement with pricing information by March 09, 2023 @ 3:00 PM Eastern Time to Javier Medina-Velazquez, Contracting Officer, Email: Javier.Medina-Velazquez@ihs.gov. A determination not to open competition based responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government.