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    The NITAAC Tack

    GWAC Buyer’s Guide

    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.”

    NITAAC Contracts

    To learn more about NIH GWACs visit http://nitaac.nih.gov/ or call the NITAAC hotline at 1-888-773-6542.

    CIO-SP2i (Chief Information Officer Solutions and Partners 2 Innovations) provides infrastructure and information assurance, IT operations and maintenance and CIO support in 9 task area categories including: CIO support; outsourcing; operations and maintenance; integration services;  Critical Infrastructure Protection and Information Assurance; digital government; ERP; clinical support, Research, and Studies; and software development

    IW2nd (ImageWorld 2 New Dimensions) offers all necessary imaging technology for business, medical sciences and geographic information systems.

    ECS III (Electronic Commodities Store III)
    ECS III provides software and hardware, software documentation, hardware maintenance, warranty services and peripherals. 

    “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.”