SAS Support for the Non-Insured Health Benefits (NIHB) Directorate SAS Platform

ADVANCE CONTRACT AWARD NOTICE  (ACAN)

1.	Definition
An Advance Contract Award Notice (ACAN) allows departments and agencies to post a notice, for no less than fifteen (15) calendar days, indicating to the supplier community that it intends to award a good, service or construction contract to a pre-identified contractor.  If no other supplier submits, on or before the closing date, a Statement of Capabilities that meets the requirements set out in the ACAN, the competitive requirements of the government's contracting policy have been met.  Following notification to suppliers not successful in demonstrating that their Statement of Capabilities meets the requirements set out in the ACAN, the contract may then be awarded using the Treasury Board's electronic bidding authorities.

If other potential suppliers submit Statement of Capabilities during the fifteen calendar day posting period, and meet the requirements set out in the ACAN, the department or agency must proceed to a full tendering process on either the government's electronic tendering service or through traditional means, in order to award the contract.

2.	Definition of Requirements

2.1 Title:
SAS Support for the Non-Insured Health Benefits (NIHB) Directorate SAS Platform 

2.2 Objective:
The Non-Insured Health Benefits Program is seeking to procure professional services on an as needed/requested basis to support the NIHB SAS suite of software, processes and custom code.  The vendor will provide support, programming and industry knowledge for the various SAS software tools/solutions available to NIHB which include but are not limited to: SAS Fraud Framework for Health Care, SAS Enterprise Guide, SAS Data Integration Studio, SAS Web Reports Studio, SAS Information Map Studio, SAS Data Miner and SAS Forecast Studio. 

NIHB will expand its current capabilities to analyze, report, quantify changes in benefit utilization and identify statistical anomalies within Program data by accessing the consultant’s software specific knowledge, industry and programming expertise.  The contractor will provide Health Canada with onsite professional services on an as needed/as requested basis.

2.3 Background
The NIHB Program, through its claim processor, Express Scripts Canada (ESIC), pays for claims submitted by approximately 8,500 pharmacies and 14,000 dental providers serving 930,000 First Nations and Inuit clients across Canada. On an annual basis, the Program pays over 18 million pharmacy claims and 3 million dental claims. NIHB pharmacy and dental benefit expenditures in fiscal year 2010/11 amounted to $440.8 million and $215.8 million, respectively. Additionally, NIHB provides benefits to eligible clients for Crisis Mental Health, Vision and Medical Transportation.  In order to effectively manage, analyze, adjudicate, support payment verification and identify potential risk for this volume of claims, the Program requires powerful analytic tools.  

NIHB has in place a data warehouse (DW) containing transactional information for its pharmacy benefit area.  The DW contains over 200 million rows of claims information and is organized in a star schema consisting of fact and dimension tables.

2.4 Deliverables
The contractor will deliver 309 hours of consultant time by a resource approved by NIHB for as requested work items including but not limited to:
a.	Custom SAS programming;
b.	Providing knowledge transfer to client resources;
c.	Developing SAS procedures/macros;
d.	Developing appropriate documentation for tasks;
e.	Manipulating large data files in a Linix environment;
f.	Performing software installations in a Linux and Windows environment;
g.	ETL data processing;
h.	Data mart/warehouse development/optimization.


3.	Minimum Essential Requirements
The expertise that NIHB is seeking for this contract is specific to the point that the expertise is not commonly available.  Prior knowledge of NIHB’s SAS environment is required as well as access to the SAS Worldwide domain of expertise.  The contractor requires existing experience in handling NIHB data and its nuances.  There is no room for contractors to develop domain knowledge, build experience and subject matter expertise.

Any interested supplier must demonstrate by way of a Statement of Capabilities that it meets all the following mandatory requirements:

1)	Corporate experience: the Bidder must demonstrate that they have provided a minimum of five (5)  Senior SAS Technical Analysts, for the provision of enhanced software maintenance and support,  in a department or organization of over 1000 employees. Each reference must be at least one (1) year  in duration completed in the last seven (7) years from the issuance of this ACAN. The resources do not need to be on the same project but they must be unique resources, to demonstrate compliance. 
2)	The proposed resource(s) must have demonstratable knowledge of NIHB’s SAS environment which includes: SAS Fraud Framework for Health Care, SAS Enterprise Guide, SAS Data Integration Studio, SAS Web Reports Studio and SAS Information Map Studio.
3)	The proposed resource(s) must have acces to SAS Worldwide domain of expertise.
4)	The proposed resource(s) must have experience working with Health Insurance transactional claims information.
5)	The proposed resource(s) must have experience implementing the SAS Fraud Framework for Health Care in Canada.
6)	The proposed resource(s) must have at least 5 years experience performing the following fuctions:
a.	Custom SAS programming;
b.	Providing knowledge transfer to client resources;
c.	Developing SAS procedures/macros;
d.	Developing appropriate documentation for tasks;
e.	Manipulating large data files in a Linix environment;
f.	Performing software installations in a Linux and Windows environment;
g.	ETL data processing;
h.	Data mart/warehouse development/optimization.

7)	The propsed resource(s) must have a valid relaiability clearance granted or approved by CISD/PWGSC
8)	The Contractor must, at all times during the performance of the contract, hold a valid Designated Organization Secreening (DOS), issued by the Canadian Industrial Security Directorate (CSID), Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC).

4.	Trade Agreements
This requirement is subject to NAFTA, Canada-Chile FTA, Canada-Peru FTA, Canada Colombia FTA and AIT agreements.\

5.	Title to Intellectual property 
The Contractor will own Inellectual Property.
	
6.	Contract Period
Initial Contract Period:  One (1) year from contract award date or 309 billable service hours, which ever comes first.
Option Period 1: One (1) year from from the renewal date or 309 billable service hours, which ever comes first.
Option Period 2: One (1) year from renewal date or 309 billable service hours, which ever comes first.
Option Period 3: One (1) year from renewal date or 309 billable service hours, which ever comes first.
Option Period 4: One (1) year from renewal date or 309 billable service hours, which ever comes first.

7.	Estimated Cost
Initail Contract Peiod: $82,000CAD (plus applicable taxes)
Option Period 1: $82,000CAD (plus applicable taxes)
Option Period 2: $82,000CAD (plus applicable taxes)
Option Period 3: $82,000CAD (plus applicable taxes)
Option Period 4: $82,000CAD (plus applicable taxes)

8.	Exception to the Government Contracts Regulations and applicable trade agreements
Section 6 (d) of the Government Contract Regulations stating only one firm or individual is capable of performing the contract: 

The pre-selected supplier owns the copyright of SAS Software and is the only firm with experience working with the NIHB SAS platform and is therefore the only firm capable of performing the contract.

9.	Name and Address of the Proposed Contractor
SAS Institute (Canada) Inc.
360 Albert Street, Suite 1600
Ottawa, Ontario K1R 7X7

10.	Inquiries on Submission of Statement of Capabilities
"Suppliers who consider themselves fully qualified and available to provide the services/goods described herein, may submit a Statement of Capabilities in writing, preferably by e-mail, to the contact person identified in this Notice on or before the closing date and time of this Notice.  The Statement of Capabilities must clearly demonstrate how the supplier meets the advertised requirements."

11.	Closing Date
Tuesday April 15th, 2014 at 2:00 PM EST

12.	Contract Authority
Tarigh Arand
Senior Procurement and Contracting Officer
Health Canada, PROCUREMENT AND CONTRACTING UNIT
200 Eglantine Driveway, Tunney's Pasture 
Ottawa, Ontario  
K1A 0K9 
Email: tarigh.afrand@hc-sc.gc.ca 
Telephone :  613-954-8254
Fax :  613-941-2645