University of Kansas Medical Center, B-278400, January 26,

B-278400 Jan 26, 1998 Jump To VIEW DECISION RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights Technically superior proposal under a solicitation which stated that proposed price was more important than technical evaluation factors is unobjectionable where the agency reasonably determined that the awardee's substantial technical advantage warranted payment of the price premium associated with its proposal. 2. /1/ provided that award would be made to the responsible offeror whose offer conforming to the solicitation was most advantageous to the government. Advised offerors that technical factors when combined were significantly less important than price. Proposals were to be evaluated under the following factors. Offerors were required to "[p]rovide results of the latest JCAHO including date and recommendations.". View Decision Matter of: University of Kansas Medical Center File: B-278400 Date: January 26, 1998 * Redacted Decision DIGEST Attorneys DECISION The University of Kansas Medical Center (KUMC) protests the award of a contract to Health MidWest under request for proposals (RFP) No. 589-07-97 issued by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for radiation therapy, consultation, and treatment of veterans. The protester argues that the agency improperly evaluated technical proposals, failed to conduct meaningful discussions, and made an improper award based on a defective cost/technical trade-off. We deny the protest. The RFP, issued on February 20, 1997, contemplated the award of a fixed-price contract for a base year, with two 1-year options. The solicitation, which required that contractors be licensed by the state in which they operate and be accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), /1/ provided that award would be made to the responsible offeror whose offer conforming to the solicitation was most advantageous to the government, price and other factors considered. The RFP, as amended, advised offerors that technical factors when combined were significantly less important than price. Proposals were to be evaluated under the following factors, listed in descending order of importance: price; quality; availability; and management and experience. Under the quality factor, offerors were required to "[p]rovide results of the latest JCAHO including date and recommendations." Offerors were also required to provide a synopsis of the offeror's overall approach to quality control/quality improvement. Under management and experience, offerors were asked to address accessibility of management and management's responsiveness to problems on the proposed contract. Proposals were received from KUMC and Health MidWest by the closing date for receipt of initial proposals. KUMC's proposal included a July 31, 1996, letter from JCAHO granting accreditation to the hospital. The third paragraph of this letter stated the following: The enclosed survey report also includes recommendations intended to assist you in continuing to achieve this goal. If this report and its recommendations are unclear in any way, please contact us for clarification. KUMC did not include with its proposal the JCAHO report or any material which contained the recommendations referred to in the JCAHO letter. The technical proposals were evaluated by the technical evaluation team, which issued a consensus report awarding KUMC's proposal a score of [deleted] out of [deleted] possible technical points. Health MidWest's proposal received a score of 36 technical points. The contracting officer scored the price proposals by assigning the total number of available points to KUMC, the lowest-priced offeror, and assigning points to Health MidWest based on the percentage by which its offer was higher than KUMC's. /2/ Both offerors' proposals were included in the competitive range and oral discussions were held with both offerors. The contracting officer states that, during discussions, she informed KUMC that she could not give an offeror specific instructions on how to strengthen its proposal, but that she specifically read KUMC the evaluation factors and subfactors for the areas of KUMC's proposal that were considered weak. With respect to the quality factor and its subfactors, the contracting officer states that she referred KUMC to the requirement to provide results of the latest JCAHO inspection along with recommendations and date, and advised that KUMC's overall approach to quality control/quality improvement and results of pertinent employees competency testing were weak. The contracting officer also states that she advised KUMC of weaknesses under KUMC's response to the availability factor, which included explanation of the offeror's billing process, synopsis of day-to-day business flow, description of physician resources including number/type of patient care areas, offices, parking facilities, and access to public transportation.