On May 6th, HRSA’s National Hansen’s Disease Program released a Presolicitation for Small Businesses to be aware that a full solicitation will be issued on or about May 30, 2013 to procure health data management services. At that time, HRSA will look for small businesses able to provide the data management services needed to assist with the Ambulatory Care and Private Physician Programs. The Solicitation is expected to have funding of $7 million as a total small business set-aside. Hansen’s disease (HD) in the U.S. occurs primarily in California, Louisiana, New York, Puerto Rico, and Texas among Asian and Hispanic populations in these areas. The disease is a chronic infectious disease of low communicability affecting the skin and peripheral nerves in the cooler parts of the body. It is effectively treated by multidrug therapy but if left untreated, it can lead to loss of sensation in the affected areas, leading to trauma, infection, and eventually to deformity and disability.
The Ambulatory Care Program (ACP) was initiated in 1981 due to the closing of the U.S. P.H.S hospitals. In previous years, persons with HD were cared for in those facilities. In place of these hospitals, a Contract Care Program was developed to provide these services in communities where the majority of people with HD Live. To serve HD patients, 13 Outpatient HD Clinics were established in a number of states.
Data management is needed to serve the HD community of patients. The purpose of the future solicitation is to find applicants able to maintain and update the HD Health Information System used for program management in the ACP. The ACP provides data with input from the Outpatient HD clinics throughout the U.S and Puerto Rico. The database contains data on 3,500 patients along with a separate database of patients and physicians in the Private Physician Program.
All future information on the Solicitation will be available at www.fbo.gov. For more details contact Diane at dcoger@hrsa.gov or call (301) 443-2583.