Federal Reports

The VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) reviews nonpharmaceutical proposals submitted to the VA National Acquisition Center (NAC) for Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) contracts valued annually at $10 million or more for high tech medical equipment, $3 million or more for all other FSS contracts, $100,000 or more based on manufacturer sales under dealers or resellers, or as requested by the NAC. These preaward reviews help contracting officers negotiate fair and reasonable prices for the government and taxpayers. The reviews are not published because they contain proprietary commercial information protected from release under the Trade Secrets Act.To promote transparency, this report summarizes the 103 preaward reviews of the NAC’s nonpharmaceutical proposals conducted by the OIG during fiscal years 2018–2020. The 103 proposals had a cumulative estimated contract value of about $8.1 billion and included 129,390 offered items. Contracting officers have completed negotiations on all these proposals.The OIG determined commercial disclosures were accurate, complete, and current for only 24 of the 103 proposals reviewed. This means 24 proposals were reliable for determining negotiation objectives and fair and reasonable pricing. The remaining 79 could not reliably be used for negotiations until the noted deficiencies were corrected. The OIG recommended lower prices than offered for 76 proposals. The OIG’s lower pricing recommendations resulted in the NAC awarding contracts or modifications with cost savings of about $242.4 million over the life of the contracts. For the 103 proposals reviewed, the OIG determined the proposed tracking customers for 35 were inadequate. Where possible, the OIG recommended different tracking customers, generally among the vendor’s largest commercial customers or the “All Commercial Customers” category.The OIG did not make any additional recommendations.

This Office of Inspector General (OIG) Comprehensive Healthcare Inspection Program report provides a focused evaluation of the quality of care delivered in the inpatient and outpatient settings of the James J. Peters VA Medical Center and related outpatient clinics in New York. The inspection covered key clinical and administrative processes associated with promoting quality care. For this inspection, the areas of focus were Leadership and Organizational Risks; COVID-19 Pandemic Readiness and Response; Quality, Safety, and Value; Registered Nurse Credentialing; Medication Management: Remdesivir Use in VHA; Mental Health: Emergency Department and Urgent Care Center Suicide Risk Screening and Evaluation; Care Coordination: Inter-facility Transfers; and High-Risk Processes: Management of Disruptive and Violent Behavior.At the time of the review, the leadership team had worked together for approximately eight months, although most had served in their positions for more than a year. Employee survey responses revealed that the Associate Director and Associate Director for Patient Care Services/Chief Nurse Executive had opportunities to reduce staff feelings of moral distress, while the Associate Director also had opportunities to improve servant leadership behavior. Patient survey data implied general satisfaction with the care provided; however, opportunities existed to improve inpatient care satisfaction and access to outpatient care. Review of accreditation findings, sentinel events, and disclosures identified organizational risk factors associated with sentinel event and institutional disclosure processes. Executive leaders were knowledgeable within their scope of responsibilities about VHA data and factors contributing to poorly performing quality and efficiency measures.The OIG issued five recommendations for improvement in two areas:(1) Quality, Safety, and Value• Peer review processes• Surgical workgroup meeting attendance and surgical death reviews(2) High-Risk Processes• Disruptive behavior committee meeting attendance• Staff training

The audit objectives were to determine whether program funds were managed in accordance with the ARC and Federal grant requirements