Health IT services as one of the fastest growing markets in both the government and private sector has an annual growth rate of 7.4 percent. Given the wide range of activities and the federal agencies desire for health IT accessibility, health IT has become a valuable and strategic market for the General Services Administration (GSA) www.gsa.gov.
Today, GSA’s IT Schedule 70 www.gsa.gov/schedule70 is the largest most widely used acquisition vehicle in the federal government. The IT Schedule 70 award schedule provides direct access to products, services, and solutions from more than 5,000 certified industry partners. Also, the IT Schedule 70 is the largest GSA Schedule in terms of number of contract holders and sales.
To ensure that IT Schedule 70 stays at the forefront of the health IT market and to make it even easier for government to get access to new and emerging health IT services. GSA has released the new “Health IT Services Special Item Number (SIN 132-56)” for all health IT services. The web site www.gsa.gov/portal/content/243683 gives details on (SIN 132-56).
Health IT Services (SIN 132-56) separates health IT from other IT services and will provide access to cutting-edge health IT, simplify the procurement process for health IT services, and provide more data to track health IT spending.
At the same time, Health IT SIN fosters competition and promotes small business participation. Health IT SIN gives industry partners a way to distinguish their health IT services offerings from other IT related services already under the IT Schedule 70 program.
The new Health IT SIN is the result of collaboration between federal agencies and industry partners. The VA and the Defense Health Agency (DHA) have worked closely together to ensure that Health IT SIN is a valuable resource to federal, state, local, and tribal government.
Since the beginning of the Health IT (SIN 132-56) development process, the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) www.va.gov/health has referred vendors to IT Schedule 70 for possible inclusion under Health IT (SIN 132-56).