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Contract Opportunity

STATEMENT OF NEED

The Robert J. Dole VA Medical Center (RJDVAMC), consisting of a main campus in Wichita, Kansas; six Kansas community-based outpatient clinics (CBOC) located in Dodge City, Hays, Hutchinson, Parsons, Salina, and Wichita; and a Vet Center located in Wichita, Kansas currently has within its inventory approximately two hundred and thirty-seven (237) assets used for food preparation, medical supplies, medication, medication storage, and healthcare related samples for staff and veteran patients during their stay. An expansion of up to 10 additional pieces of equipment per year should also be included. The future projected assets added to the equipment inventory list are currently unidentified pieces of equipment but would be similar in use and purpose as the current equipment inventory. The expansion of up to 10 additional pieces of equipment is anticipated but not guaranteed. The contractor will be required to submit an individual price per piece of equipment for the anticipated equipment expansion. The equipment consists of critical components for the VA staff to prepare food, prepping and assembling equipment for tray delivery, warming, and holding equipment to maintain the food s freshness and ready-to-serve state until delivered to patients, dishwashing equipment, and refrigeration equipment for food and medical sample storage, medicine, vaccinations, walk-in cooler and freezers, sterile supplies, commercial ice makers and refrigerators.

The equipment is manufactured by several manufactures requiring service technicians to have a broad and diverse knowledge of each unit. The technicians need to have a variety of parts unique to each unit available to enable the equipment to be returned to service expeditiously to allow the VA staff to provide patient services at a level to maintain accreditation of the facility. The demand posed by the volume of equipment in operation exceeds: the HVAC shop s manning levels and ability to provide the necessary services in a timely manner; its ability to provide staff with the needed training on the diverse equipment; and is greatly affected by delayed acquisition of parts. Parts needed come from a variety of vendors and the lead time to research and obtain quotes, procure the parts, and then, wait on parts to arrive at the facility, leads to extreme down times for critical machinery, negatively impacting patient care and services and healthcare related processes.

Some of the equipment manufacturers, such as Follett, Helmer, Hobart, Hoshizaki, Kelvinator, Kenmore, Samsung, Standex, Summit Medical, Vulcan, Whirlpool, etc. contain proprietary components and programming that make it so that a qualified technician trained to work on these specific models is necessary. Beyond specialized training, someone who has access to the needed programing software to address issues that may occur is required. The (RJDVAMC) (a/k/a the Facility) seeks a vendor/contractor through contracting services who can provide the necessary skilled labor and access to the parts that historically wear and/or break either through normal use or accidental breakages to increase timeliness in necessary repairs and expediently return the equipment back to service. Additionally, the Facility seeks this vendor/contractor to provide a maintenance program to prevent predictive failures, and a training program to ensure optimal equipment operation allowing the VA staff to meet their service standards. It is paramount that each unit is operational and available assuring that the Facility can maintain all current and future accreditations.

The equipment must be maintained to provide an acceptable level of safety and quality this also includes the requirements of the Joint Commission s Standards. To avoid an increased time/risk-based assessment by qualified personnel, all equipment must be maintained to original equipment manufacturers (OEM) specifications and standards. Technicians must be certified and familiar with each manufacturer and model of equipment in the Facility s inventory.

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