National Institute on Drug Abuse, Office of Acquisitions- Neurosciences, Station Support/Simplified Acquisitions intends to negotiate on a sole source basis with the
Stanford Department of Anesthesia. In collaboration with: Stanford Center for Clinical Informatics (Stanford University in California) to develop, test and implement an open source, open standard and free National Pain Registry. Currently, there are a broad array of available treatments for chronic pain which include: pharmacologic, interventional, psychological/behavioral, physical, and complementary approaches. Unfortunately, despite the increase in therapies, over 100 million people in the U.S. still suffer from unwanted pain, (I.O.M. Report) at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars each year in indirect costs and direct medical expenses. Yet it is not known which treatments are best for which patient or, in the worst case, whether a particular treatment is effective or even safe over an extended time. This registry will be used to collect outcomes data that will be used for outcomes research, comparative effectiveness research, and point of care decision making on large numbers of patients suffering from chronic pain.
Stanford is the only known source able to perform the requirements because they have contributed significant funds to develop the initial stages of the project, and will continue to contribute funds until the project is completed, reducing Government cost. To start this project from the initial stage would cost significant financial expenditures and time to the Government. These health questions pertain to the comparative effectiveness of a variety of numerous pain medicine treatments. In addition to the above, Stanford has agreed to make this an open access system and not a subscription model or a data ownership model, with an annual fee or the selling of patient data to third parties.

This contract will leverage the existing work performed by the NIH initiative, Patient Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS), to utilize item response theory (IRT) and computer adaptive testing (CAT) to provide a state of the art registry framework. This project will augment the data dictionary and collection methods of PROMIS with additional validated outcome questionnaires measuring the multiple dimensions of pain.
The Contractor will perform the following tasks:
a. Assembling the pain medicine experts and computer experts to create a functional prototype of pain registry using PROMIS CAT modules and possibly genetic data.
b. Test the pain registry at Stanford University.
c. Contact other pain medicine practices to contribute data.
d. Analyze data to provide comparative effectiveness outcomes and provide all information ( progress reports and final report) at six month intervals to the NIH Pain Consortium participating members.

Period of performance is 24 months.

The acquisition is being conducted under simplified acquisition using FAR 12 procedures and is exempt from the requirements of FAR Part 6, Competition Requirement. This notice of intent is not a request for competitive proposals. Interested parties may identify their interest and capabilities in response to this synopsis. The determination by the Government not to compete the proposed contract based upon responses to this notice is solely with the discretion of the Government.

Comments to this announcement, referencing synopsis number NOI2594665 may be submitted to the NIDA, Station Support/Simplified Acquisition Branch, 31 Center Drive, Bldg 31, Room 1B59, Bethesda, MD 20892-2080, and Attention: Susan A. Nsangou, Contracting Officer.