Updated November 19, 2020
Solicitation: VA11817F10090008
Contract: VA118-16-D-1009_VA11817F10090008_P00009
The proposed action is for a 30 day extension of Firm-Fixed-Price (FFP) Task Order (TO) VA11817F10090008 under Transformation Twenty-One Total Technology Next Generation (T4NG) Contract VA118-16-D-1009 TO VA11817F10090008 with AbleVets, LLC. This task order was awarded on June 19, 2017 for the Office of Connected Care (OCC). Through modification P00008, the TO included a 12-month base period, one 12-month option period, one 8-month option period, and one 9-month option period and is currently set to expire on November 18, 2020. Due to delays in awarding the competitive follow-on TO, VA is seeking a modification to extend the period of performance through December 18, 2020 for Operations and Maintenance (O&M) sustainment services to the Light Electronic Action Framework (LEAF) platform. Specifically, this support includes thirty days of sustainment support to the current platform, help desk, and remediation of bug fixes and Authority To Operate (ATO) scan findings.
The proposed source is AbleVets, LLC. The original TO was competed and awarded to AbleVets. The existing TO is set to expire on November 18, 2020. There has been a delay in the award of the new TO and the estimated award date has subsequently pushed to no later than December 18, 2020, which will cause a gap in services. As the current Contractor LEAF Enhancements FORCE Number VA-21-000150482 performing the required services, AbleVets, LLC is the only Contractor with the ability to seamlessly continue providing O&M sustainment to support and provide remediation, communications, and server support services for the OCC Innovations’ LEAF platform.
It would be impractical and inefficient to attempt to onboard a new Contractor to provide these services for the limited performance period between the expiration of the current TO and the award of the new TO. In addition, as the incumbent, AbleVets will provide valuable assistance to VA during the transition of services to the new TO and VA intends to continue to pay the current prices on contract for these services. Transferring the services to a new Contractor for this 30-day performance period would be more costly to the Government, approximately $200,000.00 based on previous acquisition history, than extending the current TO due to the administrative costs of putting a new contract in place and re-staffing the effort. Furthermore, VA security requirements would hinder any new Contractor’s ability to commence services by the needed start date of November 19, 2020. VA cannot endure any breaks in service for this support as it would cause significant harm to the Agency and the Agency employees; as such, a 30-day extension of the current TO for support services is the most efficient and economical means of meeting VA’s requirements until the new TO is awarded and all services are transitioned.
Posted June 19, 2020
Solicitation: VA11817F10090008
Contract: VA118-16-D-1009_VA11817F10090008_P00008
The proposed action is for a five-month extension of Firm-Fixed-Price (FFP) Task Order (TO) VA11817F10090008 under Transformation Twenty-One Total Technology Next Generation (T4NG) Contract VA118-16-D-1009 with AbleVets LLC. TO VA11817F10090008 was awarded on June 19, 2017 for the Office of Connected Care (OCC).
Due to a surge in new and high-priority technical requirements supporting the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) healthcare crisis, the necessity to support VA emergency operations is required. The VA is seeking a modification to the existing TO to extend the period of performance through November 18, 2020 to include additional Minor, Moderate, and Major Enhancements to the Light Electronic Action Framework (LEAF) platform. Specifically, there will be an addition of 32 Minor Enhancements, 20 Moderate Enhancements, and 12 Major Enhancements. A five month extension of the TO’s requirements is necessary to ensure continued support during the COVID-19 pandemic, prior to and during the transition to a new competitively awarded TO.
The proposed action is to provide COVID-19 emergency support development, enhancement, database refactoring, remediation, communications, outreach, coaching, and deployment support services for OCC Innovations’ LEAF platform. The LEAF platform is built on a Personal Home Page (PHP) web application framework that uses MySQL (Structured Query Language) as its data store, and Apache Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) server as well as leveraging the VA active directory, and the associated Personal Identity Verification (PIV) log on requirements, to handle authentication. The platform uses a Representational State Transfer (REST) style application program interface (API) for interfacing with other websites or applications, and JavaScript is used extensively on the client side to drive a Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) 5 and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) based user interface.
VA was in the process of drafting requirements for a long term competitive contract for the LEAF services which was anticipated to be solicited in March 2020. In preparation for this competitive contract, VA conducted market research in February 2020 by examining other firms that might be viable candidates based on past experience. The market research enabled us to identify 3 firms, including AbleVets, that could potentially satisfy the scope.
Upon completion of this market research, VA began drafting acquisition requirements documents in March 2020 to include the following; Performance Work Statement (PWS), Independent Government Cost Estimate (IGCE) and the Source Selection Evaluation Plan. In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic began severly impacting the United States, causing an uptick in LEAF operations. The additional COVID-19 workload caused VA to have to put on hold the finalizing of the competitive acquisition requirement documents. Additionally, VA is currently reassessing and revising the PWS requirements for the new competitive contract in light of the support required by the ongoing pandemic response, which is atypical of normal operations.
