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Request for Proposals
Solicitation No. AHRQ-10-10003
Date Issued: February 25, 2010
Date Proposals Due: April 15, 2010, 12:00 PM
Contracting Office: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), Contracts Management, 540 Gaither Road, Rockville, MD 20850; Sharon Williams, Contracting Officer
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Summary
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA)—Horizon Scanning System
You are invited to submit a proposal to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) for Request for Proposal (RFP) No. AHRQ-10-10003, entitled "Horizon Scanning System" Your proposal must be developed and submitted in accordance with the requirements and instructions of this RFP.
A Firm Fixed Price contract of 2 years and three 1-year option periods is contemplated to be awarded from this RFP. This is a full and open competition contract, open to all sources.
Questions regarding this solicitation shall be received in this office no later than March 11, 2010. Your questions should be submitted to the attention of Sharon Williams, Contracting Officer. Questions shall be submitted in writing only by E-mail to sharon.williams@ahrq.hhs.gov.
It is the offeror's responsibility to monitor the Web sites where the RFP is posted to learn about any amendments to the solicitation.
Background
AHRQ is soliciting proposals to establish a Horizon Scanning System, to be funded with ARRA funds. This is a new requirement and there is no incumbent.
This project is part of AHRQ's comparative effectiveness research initiative (CER). The goal of CER is to improve health outcomes and the quality of care by providing evidence to inform and enhance medical decisions made by patients and their medical providers. This solicitation presents AHRQ's effort to implement its own horizon scanning system in order to identify new and emerging issues for comparative effectiveness investments through the Effective Health Care (EHC) Program.
Horizon scanning involves:
- The identification and monitoring of new and evolving healthcare interventions that are purported to or may hold potential to diagnose, treat or otherwise manage a particular condition.
- An analysis of the relevant healthcare context and landscape in which these new and evolving interventions exist in order to understand their potential impact on clinical care, the healthcare system, patient outcomes, and cost.
This project will provide AHRQ with a systematic process to identify and monitor healthcare technologies that are likely to have a high clinical, system and cost impact in the United States. The AHRQ Healthcare Horizon Scanning System shall be informed by existing methods but incorporate novel and innovative approaches.
The purpose of this project is to meet an immediate need at AHRQ to establish a horizon scanning system. Through this procurement, AHRQ seeks to quickly and efficiently implement a horizon framework and infrastructure to immediately generate information that will inform comparative effectiveness research investments through the EHC Program. It is expected that the majority of the effort necessary to accomplish the required tasks will be dedicated to the implementation of a horizon scanning system and to the actual conduct of horizon scanning.
The performance requirements of this solicitation are as follows:
- Refine and implement a protocol to identify and monitor new healthcare technologies.
- Refine and implement a methodology to forecast the future clinical, system, and cost impact of identified technologies.
- Report on findings from horizon scanning activities (through scheduled, periodic status updates and topical reports requested by AHRQ).
- Review methods of horizon scanning used by public and private organizations in the United States and internationally.
- Develop a plan to evaluate the implemented horizon scanning protocol and methodology.
Downloading Information
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- Amendment 1, Questions and Answers (Word® File, 95 KB).
Persons with disabilities experiencing problems accessing portions of the Word® files for this RFP should contact Sharon Williams at sharon.williams@ahrq.hhs.gov.
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Current as of March 2010
540 Gaither Road Rockville, MD 20850