Amendment 0003   3

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) intends to issue a Request for Proposal (RFP) to support the program entitled "Measure and Instrument Development and Support (MIDS). This program promotes the quality of healthcare by emphasizing major strategies for evaluating and improving care. Under multiple task orders, the contractors will assist CMS in developing, testing, refining, revising, maintaining, implementing, and publically reporting quality healthcare-specific measures.

The development and use of clinical quality measures remains a critical healthcare priority and the tool of choice for improving quality of care at the national, community and facility levels. The MIDS contract provides a vehicle to objectively evaluate and promote quality of care within the Federal quality reporting programs by aligning with the Measures Management Blueprint, a comprehensive and structured process for developing and maintaining evidence-based clinical quality measures (CQMs), including electronic CQMs, based on Electronic Health Records.

The nature of this highly technical work requires the expertise and services of qualified personnel, facilities, equipment, materials, and supplies not otherwise provided by the government, as needed to perform quality measurement program support activities. Development, revision, and/or maintenance of assessment instrument data items, data collection vehicles, and quality measures (including corresponding manuals, public outreach and coordination of data elements and measures with other MIDS contractors) comprise the fundamental activities under the IDIQ contract. The MIDS Contractor is required to have the expertise to successfully complete all activities specified in the Statement of Work, such as carrying out the environmental scan, developing new CQMs, conducting testing and analytics (including electronic measure specification), and providing technical support to the consensus entity endorsement process.

It is anticipated that CMS will award multiple indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract awards that will have a five (5) year ordering period with provisions for pricing arrangements including cost plus fixed fee, time and materials, labor hour, or fixed price contracts. Specific tasks and/or work to be performed will be detailed in, and solicited by, individual Task Orders. Task Orders will not be posted on Federal Business Opportunities (FedBizOpps) website.

A pre-solicitation conference will take place on April 1, 2013 in the CMS auditorium at 7500 Security Blvd, Baltimore, MD 21244. This is a secured area and identification will be required. Interested parties wishing to attend the pre-solicitation conference must respond by March 25, 2013 with the names of the attendees. Potential offerors will be limited to two (2) attendees per company and one (1) additional person per subcontractor if using any subcontracting agreements. There will also be a call-in teleconference made available for those who are unable to attend in person and for any additional personnel from any companies in attendance. The key points that will be addressed in the pre-solicitation conference are:

IDIQ contract vehicle
Overall Statement of Work and Task Orders
Technical Considerations and Proposal Evaluation
Conflict of Interest
Question and Answer

Contractors must be free of conflicts of interest or prepare an OCI mitigation plan to address any actual, potential or apparent organizational conflicts of interest that could arise. Information concerning OCIs will be addressed at the pre-solicitation conference and subsequent solicitation.

CMS intends to solicit this requirement under full and open competition. This announcement is not a request for proposal (RFP). CMS anticipates release of a Request for Proposal in April 2013. The solicitation will be available on the Federal Business Opportunities (FedBizOpps) website. Contract awards are anticipated by September 30, 2013. It will be the offeror's responsibility to frequently check the same site where the solicitation is to be posted for any amendments, changes to the RFP issue and closing date.

The period of performance will be one base year plus four (4) one-year options. The NAICS code applicable to this procurement is 541690 (Other Scientific and Technical Consulting Services) with a size standard of $14 million.

This synopsis is in reference to RFP-CMS-MIDS-2013-0001. A formal solicitation package will be available on or about the second week of April 2013. Proposals will be due approximately 45 days after the RFP issue date. Questions related to this synopsis should be referred to Irina Perl at Irina.Perl@cms.hhs.gov.

All contractual and technical questions must be submitted in writing (via e-mail). Telephone questions will not be accepted. The Government is not obligated or committed to award any contract as a result of this notice. Hard copies or CD Roms will not be available. Telephone and fax requests will not be honored.