The Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) is the country's primary source of nationally representative, comprehensive person level data on health care use and expenses. The Household Component of the MEPS (HC) collects information on healthcare use, insurance coverage, access to care and other key data for a nationally representative sample of persons and families. The MEPS HC data collection is conducted using a MEPS questionnaire software application programmed in a commercial software package (Blaise 4.6) augmented by Westat-developed software (WVS) that is necessary to support the complexities of the MEPS instrument. The MEPS questionnaire has been used since 2007 without a software upgrade. There is an urgent need to upgrade the MEPS questionnaire software to be compatible with updates to the Microsoft operating system and other supporting applications. As technologies continue to develop - and older versions of software are no longer supported - the project faces an increasing risk that, without a substantial technology upgrade to the MEPS questionnaire software, we will see increases in performance limitations, costs, and other operational risks. The current contract with AHRQ (HHSA290201200005C) is to conduct the MEPS Household Component. This sole source modification will add three tasks to the existing contract: Task H - Plan and outline of the instrument modernization; Task I - Converting the CAPI application to Blaise 4.8; and Task J - Interround and back end processing. Westat has been conducting the MEPS Household Component since 1996 and has been the only contractor to perform this work. Westat has experience with the complex CAPI survey instrument and has been collecting data from household respondents in the context of the MEPS for the past nineteen years resulting in over half a million interviews. The current CAPI survey instrument was initially fielded in 2007. At this point in time Westat needed to augment the Blaise software platform with Westat developed software as a means of addressing the complexities of the MEPS survey instrument. Westat has intimate knowledge of the current CAPI survey instrument and it complexities, thus allowing them to move relatively quickly and efficiently through the proposed CAPI modernization. No other potential contractor would possess this intellectual capital as it relates to the CAPI survey instrument. Westat is the only contractor that can do the proposed CAPI modernization and still maintain the quality, validity, consistency and timeliness of the data collection, processing and editing. The use of another contractor would significantly increase the possibility of disruption to the quality and validity of the data collection. Another contractor would not be able to immediately master the complexities of the MEPS-HC survey instrument in order modernize the CAPI survey instrument in such a way that data collection, processing and editing could take place in a timely way to meet the annual public release schedule of the micro data files. AHRQ requires a seamless continuation of the data collection. A new contractor would not have the background knowledge in this requirement necessary for a consistent and successful completion of this contract. This notice of intent is not a request for competitive proposals. A determination by the Government as to whether or not to compete this proposed modification action based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. Interested parties regarding this sole source action may contact the contract specialist, Robert Zuhlke, at
[email protected] , no later than 10:00 am ET, February 18, 2015. The final Justification for Approval (J&A)/Justification for Other than Full and Open Competition (JOFOC) supporting this sole source action will publicly be made available as required after the contract modification award.