The state departments of Public Health (CDPH) and Technology (CDT) are working with the California Department of General Services (DGS) to seek “an innovative solution to support the collection and transportation of COVID-19 specimens to a state laboratory for processing,” CDPH said in a news release this week. The application phase is among the quickest of the three projects; vendor submissions are due Monday, with the goal of awarding a contract and executing a scope of work on Oct. 9. Here are the takeaways:
• Gov. Gavin Newsom on Aug. 26 announced a new contract with Massachusetts-based PerkinElmer to build up to three new COVID-19 test processing labs, the first in Los Angeles County — with the goal of processing tens of thousands of additional tests by Nov. 1 and up to an additional 150,000 tests by March 1. The contractual turnaround time on tests will be 24 to 48 hours, a considerable improvement on testing — but for that, the state needs to “reach deeper into the community,” said Marko Mijic, deputy secretary for Program and Fiscal Affairs in the California Health and Human Services Agency.
“We want to be able to disrupt the disparities that we are seeing among Latinos and African Americans with regards to COVID-19. And so what we are trying to really do here is come up with a solution that ultimately enables us to go where people are and to be able to make testing more broadly (available) in California and much more accessible and equitable to all Californians,” Mijic told Techwire.
• That means identifying a solution or service that can collect specimens at all hours, seven days a week and transport them to a laboratory or laboratories within 24 hours of collection, and increasing the geographical distribution of testing “on tribal lands, as well as in urban, suburban and rural parts of the state” while meeting state and federal handling, collection, privacy and security guidelines. The solution should also “improve the ease and convenience of being tested by leveraging mobile and/or fixed capabilities” at a “fair and reasonable price point,” according to a state question and answer set. This means thinking about residents who may not have access to the Internet — or vehicles to drive to a testing site — potentially taking specimen collection beyond the traditional drive-through or pop-up site.
“I think it’s about how do we improve the existing technological modalities that we’re using, while at the same time thinking about how do we further or think differently about specimen collection more broadly,” Mijic said.
• Per its formal name, the project — the Request for Innovative Ideas for COVID-19 Test Specimen Collection and Transport — would seem to be closely aligned with Newsom’s approach to flexible procurement, Request for Innovative Ideas (RFI2), announced in January 2019. But instead of seeking a product or service, CDPH said, it is “seeking solutions to yield comprehensive and effective results,” with the goal of deployment by early November.
“We don’t have the expertise or the thinking around what is going to work best in some of these communities; and so, rather than coming up with the solution from Sacramento, we’re really enlisting all of California to think about how they can help us address the problem,” Mijic said.
In an email to Techwire, a CDT spokesperson pointed out that RFI2’s original intent in Newsom’s Executive Order N-04-19 was “to pilot with CAL FIRE for their Wildfire Management System, which has been completed.” However, similar to RFI2, this project, the spokesperson said, “is a competitive solicitation approach that utilizes multi-phase procurement and evaluation.”
• Project deadlines are coming up quickly. Submissions are due Monday. Respondents who will move to Phase Two will be notified Sept. 24, with interviews, presentations and demonstrations held Sept. 28. Finalists will develop scopes of work and contract costs and review terms and conditions from Sept. 29-Oct. 2, submitting costs and scopes of work on Oct. 2. Negotiations will be Oct. 5-8.
