Cerner Corporation, B-293093; B-293093.2, February 2, 2004

Cerner Corporation, B-293093; B-293093.2, February 2, 2004 TITLE: Cerner Corporation, B-293093; B-293093.2, February 2, 2004 BNUMBER: B-293093; B-293093.2 DATE: February 2, 2004 ********************************************************************** Cerner Corporation, B-293093; B-293093.2, February 2, 2004 DOCUMENT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE The decision issued on the date below was subject to a GAO Protective Order. This redacted version has been approved for public release. Decision Matter of: Cerner Corporation File: B-293093; B-293093.2 Date: February 2, 2004 Stephen S. Kaye, Esq., Thomas A. Schweich, Esq., and William E. Olson, Esq., Bryan Cave, for the protester. Daniel D. Dinur, Esq., Dinur & Associates, for Mobiam Solutions, Inc., an intervenor. D.A. Ridgely, Esq., and Blane B. Lewis, Esq., Department of the Army, for the agency. Linda C. Glass, Esq., and Michael R. Golden, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST 1. Agency properly accepted awardee*s software as meeting the solicitation requirement for a commercial, off-the-shelf item where the firm proposed software that is currently being sold and used under other commercial contracts. 2. Where a solicitation allows for alternative approaches to meeting performance requirements, the agency is not required to advise a technically acceptable offeror during discussions that it considers another approach to be superior to that proposed by the offeror. 3. Protest that evaluation and source selection decision were flawed is denied where the record shows that the evaluation and source selection were reasonable and consistent with the evaluation factors. DECISION Cerner Corporation protests the award of a contract to Mobiam Solutions, Inc. under request for proposals (RFP) No. DASW01-03-R-0011, issued by the Defense Contracting Command-Washington for commercial, off-the-shelf (COTS) software to satisfy a requirement for an enterprise-wide scheduling and registration system (EWS-R). We deny the protest. BACKGROUND The purpose of the procurement is to acquire a COTS solution for a schedule and registration system for the Department of Defense*s military health system (MHS). RFP S: C.3. The MHS includes ambulatory and inpatient care, operating room facilities, medical and dental offices, and other related functions. The solicitation was issued on January 28, 2003, and the RFP contemplated the award of a fixed-price contract. Under the solicitation, award was to be made based on the best overall value. The solicitation provided that in determining the proposal representing the best value, the technical and past performance evaluation factors would be considered more important than price. The technical evaluation factor included the following subfactors, which were listed in descending order of importance: requirements, software architecture, integration, configuration methodology, and quality control/security. [2] The government also stated it might conduct discussions and require product demonstrations. The agency received 11 proposals, including Mobiam*s and Cerner*s, by the original due date of March 23. After one vendor made a claim for patent infringement, the agency amended the solicitation to include a patent indemnification clause and re-issued the solicitation with a new proposal due date of May 30. One additional proposal was received by the amended due date of June 3, and six of the original offerors submitted revised proposals. Mobiam proposed a web-based application solution, including FirstServe software, and Cerner proposed a solution based on client-server technology. After the source selection evaluation board*s (SSEB) initial technical evaluation, five offerors* proposals were eliminated from the competitive range. As relevant here, Mobiam*s proposal received an acceptable rating and Cerner*s proposal received a good rating. Both offerors* proposals were among those included in the competitive range. On July 2, offerors whose proposals were included in the competitive range were advised of the date and time to perform live product demonstrations. After these product demonstrations, two more offerors* proposals were excluded from the competitive range, leaving proposals from five offerors in the competitive range, including those from Mobiam and Cerner. The agency conducted discussions with these five offerors and invited them to submit final revised proposals and a recorded video version of their respective product demonstrations. With respect to the evaluation of proposals, the agency reports that the background of the majority of the members of the SSEB was mainly in the program aspects of the procurement.