This Sole Source determination is based on the need of the National Institutes of Health, Clinical Center 9000 Rockville Pike, and Bethesda Maryland, 20892 using simplified acquisition procedures for commercial items (FAR Part 12) to procure service for The Department of Bioethics to conduct a study of the prescription of placebo treatments in medical care. Sources with expertise in the area of patient surveys for research studies are limited. The Government intends to award a sole source contract to Kaiser-Permanente 1800 Harrison St. Oakland CA. 94612. Under the authority of FAR 6.302-1, only one responsible source and no other will satisfy the agency requirements. The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) CODE IS 622110. In accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulations 52.218-8 Options to extend the Terms of the Contract-Service the award of this requirement will include base year and 2 twelve months options. Base year May 25, 2009 through May 24, 2010, option one May 25, 2010 through May 24,2011 Option two May 25, 2011 through May 24, 2012 which may be exercised at the Government’s unilateral discretion to obtain the study of prescription of placebo treatment in medical care. The requirements for this study are as follows. Contractor staff shall assist NIH investigators with the following tasks: Review of survey materials generated for the study, protocol development and seeking IRB approval, selection and recruitment of respondents, conduct of the surveys, data entry and management, data analysis, and writing of manuscripts. IRB Submission: Contractor shall be responsible for submitting the protocol for this research study for review by their Institutional Review Board. Writing the protocol will be a collaborative effort, with NIH providing content on background, rationale, and survey development, and the contractor addressing institution-specific requirements and describing recruitment, survey procedures, and data handling. Recruitment: the contractor shall identify a sample of potential respondents who are patients within their system, and will prepare and mail recruitment materials sufficient in number to recruit a total of 800 participants for this survey, divided evenly among the following four disease categories: Oncology, Osteoarthritis, Depression, and Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Data Collection: the contractor staff shall conduct telephone interviews with patients from within their system, with a target number of 200 in each of the four above-mentioned disease categories. Interviews will be approximately 20-30 minutes in length and will be conducted using a Computer-Aided Telephone Interviewing (CATI) facility on site. Data Management: the contractor shall prepare a clean, properly coded dataset in an electronic format agreed upon by the contractor and NIH investigators, along with a codebook for the survey. The contractor shall also delivery a field report at the end of the survey that summarizes all procedures followed, including appropriate calculations of response rates and a detailed description of reasons for non-response. Analysis/Writing: the contractor shall provide support to NIH in the analysis of data from this study and development of manuscripts based on study findings. Specifically, the contractor shall work with NIH to conceptualize the analytic plan, analytic models addressing the main research themes, and appropriate variables for the analysis; to produce data runs for the analytic phase of the project; to interpret the data runs; and to write publishable research manuscripts. The solicitation/contract will include all applicable provisions and clauses in effect through Federal Acquisition Circular 2005-31. The offer must include complete copies of the following provisions: 1) FAR Clause 52.212-1, Instructions to Offerors Commercial: 2) FAR Clause 52.212-2, Evaluation Commercial Items. As stated in FAR Clause 52.212- (a), The Government will award a contract resulting from this solicitation to the responsible Offeror whose offer conforms to the solicitation, and will be most advantageous to the Government, with price and other factors considered. The following factors shall be used to evaluate offers: Technical Evaluation and Price. This action is under the authority of FAR 6.302-1 Only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements. Interested parties may identify their interest and capabilities to respond to the requirement, by submitting a proposal. This notice of intent is not a request for competitive quotations, however, all responses received within 15 days from the date of publication of this synopsis, will be considered by the Government. Offeror must include in their quotation, the price including the cost breakdown to conduct the study, shipping and handling costs, the delivery period after contract award, the prompt payment discount terms, the delivery terms (Destination or Origin), the Duns and Bradstreet Number (DUNS), the Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN), and the certification of business size. NOTE: In order to receive an award from the Government, the contractors must have a valid registration in the Central Contractors Registration (CCR) www.ccr.gov. The clauses are available in full text at http://www.arnet.gov/far. Interested vendors capable of furnishing the government with the items specified in this synopsis, should submit their quotation to the below address. Quotations will be due fifteen (15) calendar days from the publication date of this synopsis, or May 12, 2009 at 3:00 pm (DST), Eastern Standard Time. The quotation must reference Solicitation number NIHCC158246. All responsible sources may submit a quotation, which if timely received, shall be considered by the agency. Quotations must be submitted in writing to the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center, 6707 Democracy 2/106 Bethesda, Maryland 20892; Attention: Jearnean Jackson
[email protected]. Faxed copies will not be accepted. Emails copies will be accepted.