HHS NIH - OAR IT Contract Recompete - MRAS

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through the General Services Administration (GSA), is conducting market research to assess capabilities for a critical contract supporting the National Institutes of Health's Office of AIDS Research (NIH/DPCPSI/OAR). This initiative aims to maintain and enhance mission-critical information systems that are pivotal for HIV/AIDS research planning, budget coordination, portfolio analysis, reporting, and collaboration across NIH Institutes and Centers. The contract will be structured as a Firm-Fixed Price (FFP) agreement with a base year followed by four option years.

The primary objective of this contract is to secure performance-based IT systems and application development services. These services encompass modernization, operations, maintenance, security compliance, and documentation support for OAR systems. The contractor will be responsible for ensuring that these systems remain operational, secure, modernized, compliant with relevant standards, available to users, supportable with minimal downtime or disruptions, and well-documented. The government seeks defined performance outcomes rather than specific staffing levels or labor hours.

The scope of work includes various essential services such as application operations and maintenance; software development and modernization; system and data integration; cloud and hybrid infrastructure support; security compliance support; documentation; training; end-user support; and transition services. The contractor must operate within the defined functional domains outlined in the Performance Work Statement (PWS), with any expansion beyond these areas requiring formal modification by the Contracting Officer.

Performance requirements emphasize system availability with at least 99.5% uptime monthly for production systems, incident response times based on severity levels (critical incidents within four business hours), deliverable quality without major deficiencies upon review, security compliance without unresolved high-risk findings beyond 30 days, Section 508 accessibility compliance prior to acceptance, and comprehensive documentation completeness at an acceptable quality level of 95%. Program management is also crucial to ensure effective coordination of all contract activities through timely reporting and risk mitigation strategies.