NAVAHCS: Rural Health Care

Background
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), through the Northern Arizona VA Health Care System (NAVAHCS), has identified health care challenges that exist in the NAVAHCS service area, to include inadequate access to care and gaps in care coordination for health care services. Inadequate access to care is driven by unique challenges in medical deserts, such as a shortage of medical providers/high turnover due to location and housing challenges, lack of consistency and trust in the health care delivery system, broad social and health care disparities, lower access to care for medically underserved populations, negative impacts of the digital divide, and a lack of reliable patient transportation in highly rural areas.
Gaps in health services/care coordination include primary care; mental health; women’s health; a variety of specialty care services, such as obstetrics/gynecology (OB/GYN), occupational therapy (OT)/physical therapy (PT), audiology, and endocrinology, etc. Additional disparities exist for rural areas in ancillary services, such as radiology, health education, home health care, wound care, and laboratory services.

Work Details
This is a non-personal services contract where the contractor shall provide all labor and supervision required to alleviate inadequate access to care and gaps in care coordination within the NAVAHCS service area. The required health care categories include adult, family, and mental health services. Provider types include primary care nurse practitioner (NP), psychologist, psychiatrist, psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner (PMHNP), and registered nurse (RN) group educator to provide a range of health care/educational services.
Services have been divided into a phased approach that starts with basic primary care needs identified by NAVAHCS and expands into cardiovascular wellness services and health screening services. Services shall be provided via the VA clinic-in-a-clinic concept that NAVAHCS has with the Indian Health Service (IHS)/Tribal (638) clinics, as well as through telehealth services and mobile medical clinic (MMC) operations.

Period of Performance
The contract period of performance will include 1 base year (September 29, 2024, to September 28, 2025) and six (6) one-year Options (September 29, 2025, to September 28, 2032).

Place of Performance
Primary performance and service delivery shall take place at the following Government facilities in the NAVAHCS region: Chinle VA Clinic; Kayenta VA Clinic; Polacca/Hopi Clinic; Tuba City VA Clinic; Page VA Clinic.