The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is conducting market research to find sources for COVID-19 data modeling, according to a Jan. 19 sources sought notice on beta.SAM.gov.
The VA is laying the groundwork for a later solicitation of a “commercial off the shelf Integrated Rapid Response and Modeling Contract.” The agency is seeking a data modeling product that looks at both short-term and long-term potential outcomes of COVID-19, in terms of cases, hospitalizations, time to reach herd immunity, and more.
Other things the VA is looking for the contractor to do include:
- Using “proven methodologies gleaned from global experience supporting healthcare organizations through past pandemics”;
- Mining data from an automated data lake that utilized real-time COVID-19 data that refreshes weekly on a cloud-based platform;
- Using a system of 170 hospitals to “provide analysis leading to rapid COVID-19 pandemic response options that will support preparedness for VHA’s full healthcare system”; and
- Using data-modeling to create more than 40 epidemic scenarios, both short term – around 100 days – and long term – around two years.
Other requirements include having the system managed 24/7, and looking at COVID-19 data from across the country and worldwide. The RFI has an initial response date of Jan. 29.
