AN42 - This RFI is for non-personal research and development support services under NAICS Code 541715-Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences

RDED PURSUANT TO THIS ANNOUCNCEMENT. A. DISCLAIMER IN ACCORDANCE WITH FAR 15.201(E), RESPONSES TO THIS NOTICE ARE NOT OFFERS AND CANNOT BE ACCEPTED BY THE GOVERNMENT TO FORM A BINDING CONTRACT. THIS RFI IS ISSUED SOLELY FOR INFORMATION AND PLANNING PURPOSES AND DOES NOT CONSTITUTE A SOLICITATION. NEITHER UNSOLICITED PROPOSALS NOR ANY OTHER KIND OF OFFERS WILL BE CONSIDERED IN RESPONSE TO THIS RFI. RESPONSES TO THIS NOTICE ARE NOT OFFERS AND WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED BY THE GOVERNMENT TO FORM A BINDING CONTRACT. ALL INFORMATION RECEIVED IN RESPONSE TO THIS RFI THAT IS MARKED PROPRIETARY WILL BE HANDLED ACCORDINGLY. RESPONSES TO THE RFI WILL NOT BE RETURNED. AT THIS TIME, QUESTIONS CONCERNING THE COMPOSITION AND REQUIREMENTS FOR FUTURE RFPs WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED. B. BACKGROUND The Naval Health Research Center (NHRC) develops and delivers operational biomedical research solutions that enhance the health, safety, readiness, and performance of our military forces. This acquisition will provide research support services to support the Operational Readiness Directorate at NHRC. The Contractor shall render the services described herein as an independent, non-personal services Contractor. C. SCOPE/OBJECTIVE The effort required under this SOW / PWS is to provide non-personal research support services to the NHRC. Performance will include intramural R and D support services for the NHRC Operational Readiness Directorate (ORD) and its departments, which includes the Warfighter Performance (WFP) Department and Medical Modeling, Simulation, Mission Support (MMS) Department, and Epidemiology and Data Management Support (EDMS) Department. This includes investigative studies that involve planning, coordinating, designing, and executing experimental protocols that meet with the overall mission of each department�s research objectives and/or overlapping efforts. The WFP Department leverages science and technology to: maximize the operational performance and enhance warfighter resilience-both physiological and psychological; and to improve assessment, diagnosis, and advanced rehabilitation strategies to optimize warfighter reset to optimize mission readiness. The MMS Department performs medical modeling and simulation research for the DOD, homeland defense, humanitarian assistance, peace-keeping and disaster relief activities including casualty projection, medical planning factor development, identification of weapons effects both ground and shipboard- based, projection of resource requirements, database development and maintenance, and medical data analysis. The EDMS Department combines expertise in epidemiology, psychology, health informatics and analytics to conduct research on warfighter health and improve military readiness, wellness, and quality of life. Performance in support of the WFP Department may include: research support services in support of NHRC intramural research devoted to the development of new strategies for enhancing human performance including load carriage impact on injury and performance; thermoregulation as it relates to prevention of heat illness and return to duty from a head injury; exposure to cold temperature and cold water operations; operations performed at altitude; surveillance markers of wounded or injured warfighters relative to biomechanics and cognitive function; defining patterns of resiliency to physical and psychological injury; mitigating the impact of insufficient sleep and fatigue; enhancing training strategies to improve post deployment behavioral health outcomes; evaluation and development of health and wellness strategies; evaluation of wounded warrior care; and recommending return-to-duty criteria for wounded service members. Performance in support of the MMS Department may include: research support services in support of NHRC intramural research devoted to the development and support services for research on casualty outcomes and modeling of casualty projections in support of operational medicine. It is heavily data driven and depends upon the collection, characterization, analysis, and reporting of data from multiple sources, including both in-house sources such as the Expeditionary Medical Encounter Database (EMED) and external DoD sources such as the Military Health System (MHS), the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), civilian and homeland defense data, tactical data, operational data, and personnel data. Performance in support of the EDMS Department may include: research support services I support of NHRC intramural research devoted to epidemiological studies of incidence/prevalence of relevant medical conditions, Exposure/outcome relationships related to warfighter health, and psychological health research related to short- and long-term wellness and quality of life. Due to the reliance on data as a core capability, emphasis is placed on the acquisition, maintenance, DE identification, abstraction, and extraction of various data sources that include administrative, career, medical, readiness, informed consent studies, and performance information. Furthermore, analytic services play a key role and include but are not limited to data cleaning, descriptive statistics, univariate/multivariable analysis, machine learning, natural language processing, and data reduction techniques (e.g., cluster analysis, latent class analysis). Clinical review of medical records includes quality control, clinical coding, and abstraction of information, and administrative duties include program management, development of research products, and management of records.