VHA RFI: Office of Health Information (OHI) Digital Health Initiative as part of the Interoperability Pledge Program Support

Notice ID: 36C10X24Q0244

The purpose of this RFI is to conduct market research to obtain information on potential market capability to provide neutral industry support as a convenor to drive digital health initiatives for the clinical informatics industry. Additionally, the Government aims to determine if any existing contract vehicles for executing tasks would be a viable pathway.

Background.  At “HealthDataPalooza”, the Undersecretary of Health from the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Dr. Shereef Elnahal, announced the creation of a Veteran Interoperability Pledge initiative to facilitate the seamless care experience and immediate access to Veteran patients’ medical history as part of making timely and accurate treatment decisions.  With aspirations to help advance treatment and reduce negative outcomes for patients in suicidal crisis, recognizing new and enhanced benefits available to Veterans based upon legislation related to toxic exposures, this pledge will help enhance access to key data between VA and community providers.

A group of thirteen (13) health systems were initial signatories to the Pledge, agreeing to work collaboratively with the VA to identify and address issues adversely affecting Veteran care, with initial focus on improving the identification of patients that are Veterans, in clarifying and improving eligibility determination for programs under which they may qualify, and to advance health data sharing across institutions in support of their care. Details about the pledge and the program can be found at the VA website at https://www.va.gov/health/veteran-interoperability-pledge.asp.

Recognizing interests in advancing this initiative to be available not only to (United States) Veterans across the country, but that many components of this program have collateral benefit to the public at large and other vulnerable communities. The VA requires support services with a neutral community convenor to assemble, manage, orchestrate, enable the broad community of interested parties and stakeholders to examine all dimensions of these issues, to prioritize and advance viable solution approaches to address these needs.

Scope.  This effort will establish a neutral home for this community of interest, managed by professional facilitators under and organization providing open membership.  It will allow the broader ecosystem involved in supporting both Veteran care and providing for similar communities to come together, determining shared priorities and solution approaches to take on the biggest challenges they face. It will allow for a unified voice to emerge and provide a powerful force in advancing viable solutions that consider existing laws, regulations, constraints, determining and advocating for changes needed on behalf of the ecosystem.  It will allow VA to bring its voice into harmony with the community, advancing both administrative and clinical solutions that are not wholly dependent upon VA capacity and capability.

Perhaps most importantly, it provides a longevity and sustainability component to these efforts inherent in broadening the consideration beyond an initial set of use cases to broadly consider the holistic set of Veteran needs and how they align to other disadvantaged groups, providing long-term benefit to participating organizations and the beneficiaries they serve.

The objective is to transition the initial signatories into an open community of practice, to charter a new, open group, and to conduct outreach to attract and grow this community to involve other stakeholders contributing to or impacted by this objective.  The starting-point of this community would be focused on current VA priorities (suicide prevention, toxic exposures, etc., the intention is to grow the scope to address full-spectrum community and cross-community care concerns (scheduling, registration, eligibility, payment, record sharing, problem list sharing, etc.).  Moreover, while a key goal is to advance Veteran care and outcomes, the intention is to provide for improvements to care for much broader cohorts, including, but not limited to Veterans.  Specific sub-objectives for this area include:

• Inviting and transitioning existing signatories to the new community.
• Identifying non-participating organizations and outreaching to spur their participation.
• Establishing a community charter, governance, policies, and procedures.
• Determining initial goals and objectives.

The contractor shall support establishment of a Community of Practice by leveraging existing industry partners, relationships, and bodies within the informatics communities who engage standards-based exchange.  Industry community refers to partners relationship within the following areas and examples:

• Providers
• Payers
• Vendors …

The period of performance for this contract is a base period of twelve months with four (4), twelve (12) month option periods.

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