The Certified Health IT Surveillance Capacity and Infrastructure

Please note that the FOA application closing deadline is Monday August 14, 2017, 12 PM NOON, ET; there will be no deadline extensions granted. Because all questions must be answered in the form of a written FAQ and be made publically available, questions received after Friday August 11 at 12:00 PM NOON, ET will not receive an answer. If you have questions or need assistance in submitting your application package, please contact the grants.gov Help Desk at support@grants.gov or call  1-800-518-4726.

ONC is excited to announce a new cooperative agreement program called the Certified Health IT Surveillance Capacity and Infrastructure Improvement No. NAP-AX-17-003.  This new approach is aimed at improving and expanding the surveillance capacity and infrastructure that exists for health IT certified under the ONC Health IT Certification Program.  Awardees will be required to develop a Strategic Plan and an Operational Plan that will demonstrate how they will improve and expand the surveillance capacity and infrastructure that currently exists for health IT.   Recipients of this funding will need to be ready to hit the ground running to develop these plans within first year of the agreement; and to implement these plans and produce results within the second year of this agreement.  Through this funding, awardees will be able to conduct additional and expanded in-the-field surveillance and testing of ONC certified health IT and ensure health IT developers with health IT certified under the ONC Health IT Certification Program are making the required capabilities available to customers and users in a manner that allows them to be used for their intended purpose as specified in ONC regulations.

Under this program, awardees will have a particular focus on interoperability and recipients will be required to deliver a Final Report that highlights the analysis of findings and recommendations for future activities that can be applied to strengthen the surveillance of certified health IT under the ONC Health IT Certification Program.   Further, the lessons learned and evidence generated by this cooperative agreement will help ensure that a comprehensive set of actions will result in the improvement of the surveillance capacity and infrastructure that exists for health IT certified under the ONC Health IT Certification Program.

The total funding available for Certified Health IT Surveillance Capacity and Infrastructure Improvement Cooperative Agreement Program awards is $1,250,000 (no less than 1 award and no more than 3 awards are expected).  The award period is expected to be a 24-month period of performance.

Together with our future partner(s), we hope that this new program will result in improved surveillance of certified health IT that will result in additional assurance that certified health IT not only meets the requirements of certification in a controlled testing environment but continues to do so when implemented and used in a production environment. 

Interested applicants are encouraged to attend the Information Session from 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. ET on July 20th. The FOA is open from now until August 14, 2017. Letters of intent are due by July 27th.  Questions can be directed to ONC.Certification@hhs.gov

Question:

What are the requirements to be an eligible applicant for The Certified Health IT Surveillance Capacity and Infrastructure Improvement Cooperative Agreement Program-FOA# NAP-AX-17-003?

Answer:

To be considered eligible to apply for The Certified Health IT Surveillance Capacity and Infrastructure Improvement Cooperative Agreement Program FOA# NAP-AX-17-003, all applicants must meet the follow requirements:

1. The applicant must be a specialized For Profit organization with proven history  at minimum 3 years of experience performing certification and in-the-field surveillance of health IT.
2. The applicant must have an ISO/IEC 17065 accreditation through the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and presently in good standing.
3. The applicant must have an active mechanism to publicly list health IT certificates and relevant surveillance results.

Question:

Are there any limitations to charging outside entities for use of the final product developed from the execution of the Surveillance Plan?

Answer:

No, grant recipients are allowed to use software developed from this award as a chargeable product/service for your organization.  See reference from page 6 in FOA extracted below:

Business and Financial Operations

Each Recipient must assess its current business model and proposed expansion and enhancements to the surveillance of certified health IT. This section of the Strategic Plan should also address how a recipient plans to effectively generate funding and manage the resources necessary to implement the Strategic and Operational Plans during the full period-of-performance of the cooperative agreement as well as ways it intends to sustain its investments beyond the period-of-performance. This should include addressing financial policies and implementing procedures to generate revenue, monitor spending, and overall fiscal responsibility so that investments made during the period-of-performance would be able to continue to be maintained after the cooperative agreement. Recipients will also address their strategy to establish a long-term strategic financial model that will consider that the costs of surveillance are distributed across health IT developers relative to their different types, sizes, technologies, past performance and market share. 

Question:

Are the names of the organizations/entities that submitted a Letter of Intent made publicly available?

Answer:

Letter of Intent notifications are proprietary and are not viewable outside of federal agencies.