By
Jeff Erlichman
A leader in providing IT to support the HHS mission is NITAAC
- the
NIH Information Technology Acquisition & Assessment Center.
When public officials talk about reforming health care and moving to
the goal of 100% electronic health records, it’s not a health
issue, it’s an IT issue.
HHS is at the epicenter of these efforts and they need IT to get the
job done. Helping HHS and customers governmentwide get the IT they need
are three GWACs administered by the NIH Information Technology
Acquisition & Assessment Center (NITAAC). These contracts
include
the CIO-SP2i, IW2nd and ECS III – recently named a strategic
source for IT by HHS.
“We do everything on our part to make sure our customers get
where they need to be,” explained Wanda Russell, NITAAC
Acquisition Business Operations Manager in a recent interview with 1105
Government Information Group Custom Media.
Core Strengths
To help the customer to get to the point of awarding
either task or delivery order is our core strength according to
Russell.
“We have a customer friendly website, with step-by-step
templates
to ease the purchasing process,” she said. “We have
active
support from our vendors, who market the contract to customers. We also
offer help to anyone who needs assistance going through our website or
putting together their packages.”
“We are constantly updating contracts and it is customer
driven,” explained Russell. “We have
established a
Help Desk, manned by a live individual all day.”
“Our goal is to make the acquisition process
easier,”
Russell noted, “and our Help Desk is really proficient in the
contract acquisition and management process. It’s not just
two
people in a Call Center, but people who have deep knowledge of our
programs.” But if the Help Desk can’t answer a
customer’s question, they will reach out to the contracting
officers and specialists who can Russell added.
No Scope Creep
While each of the contracts is open to all government
users,
including DOD, there are some parts of the CIO-SP2i GWAC that do focus
on the unique needs of agencies like NIH and its parent, HHS that are
involved in healthcare, clinical and biological research.
That brings up one of the issues that many potential users of a GWAC
faces: is what I want to purchase within the scope of the contract?
On the CIO-SP2i GWAC, Russell noted that they actually have a two tier
review system; first the SOW is reviewed by the contracting officers
and then it goes through an independent technical review before we
accept them for processing remarked Russell.
For more commodity items, if a customer has a requirement and it is not
on contract, the NITAAC team can easily put it on a contract; in fact
tens of thousands of new items have been added to the contract.
“We do it fast, but ensure they are within the scope of
contract,” noted Russell. “We are further
developing
our online system for vendors to submit their products, review them
quicker and have a faster turnaround time.”
Working For You
Unlike a GSA GWAC, no delegation of procurement
authority is
needed to use one of the NITAAC GWACs. And while they don’t
currently have a “cradle to grave” IT contract
capability,
Russell said they are currently negotiating a partnership with the HHS
Program Support Center to provide that service as a connection between
us and our customers.
They also are ready to process orders coming from the Stimulus Package.
In fact, the CIO-SP2i contract fee has been lowered from 1.5% to 1% for
IT bought with stimulus dollars.
Russell said they are always in a continuous improvement mode and
recently several managers have gone through lean Six Sigma training to
learn what can be done to improve and streamline acquisitions.
“We don’t want to reach a plateau where we think
there is
no room for improvement,” said Russell. “So we
welcome
comments from customers and partners, so when we roll out new contracts
they can be the best they can be from the
start.”