NIH gearing up for second wave of IT services contract

The National Institutes of Health is seeking comments on the second phase of an inventive contract that involves teams of vendors.

NIH's Division of Information Technology Acquisitions posted the notice last week, asking for voluntary submissions on the acquisitions contract by Feb. 11.

The original 1996 Chief Information Officer Solutions and Partners (CIO-SP) contract, which expires in August 2001, was established to test new contracting techniques, allowing buyers broad discretion in choosing their suppliers. Twenty vendor teams provide services in eight areas: contract management, data center operations, support services, integration services, telecommunications, telecommuting network development, computer security and Year 2000 software conversion support.

The CIO-SP 2 contract areas will include, but are not limited to: outsourcing, CIO legislative/regulatory and policy support, IT operations, integration services, critical infrastructure protection, digital government, enterprise resource planning and information technology support for clinical research.

"We're still in the preliminary planning stages so we haven't decided on any changes yet," said Wanda Russell, a contracting officer in NIH's Office of Procurement.

Additional information on the contract is available online. Comments and suggestions should be sent to nihcios2@od.nih.gov.