Pre-solicitation Notice: Geographic Information System (GIS) Analyst Services

This Pre-solicitation Notice is hereby issued in accordance with RFO FAR Parts 5.101 and 12.202.  This notice serves to announce Indian Health Service’s (IHS) intent to solicit a Firm-Fixed-Price (FFP), commercial purchase order for Geographic Information System (GIS) Analyst services. The proposed purchase order is anticipated to be a total Buy Indian Set-Aside with a target award in late Fiscal Year 2026.  This requirement will support the IHS Office of Public Health Support/Division of Program Statistics (OPHS/DPS). 

IHS OPHS/DPS is responsible for shaping high-level public health policy, allocating resources and tracking program performance in support American Indian/Alaskan Native (AI/AN) populations. OPHS/DPS is the statistical and data-gathering arm of IHS where it measures and documents how well the agency is improving health care access and health outcomes for AI/AN populations.  Key duties of OPHS/DPS include data collection, supporting major IHS publications, resource and patient management, and data and statistical assistance for Tribal health programs.

IHS operates in a hybrid care model in which some services are provided directly through IHS, Tribal, and urban Indian facilities, while other services depend on Purchased/Referred Care (PRC) in the surrounding health care market. The GIS Analyst services are intended to support an OPHS/DPS study producing an evidence-based, geographically explicit assessment of service adequacy and referral network performance for IHS-eligible populations. Standard network adequacy approaches are insufficient because they do not capture functional capacity, intermittent service availability, real-world travel barriers, or the operational instability of PRC supply.

The role of the GIS Analyst will be the most technically specialized in the study pipeline and will underpin nearly every other major deliverable. The GIS Analyst services shall include geospatial study design, data integration, facility capability geovisualizationping, structured geospatial QA, baseline descriptive coverage measures, network travel-time analysis, E2SFCA accessibility modeling, PRC scenario geovisualizationping, priority-area identification, location-allocation testing, and production of geovisualization atlases and technical transfer packages. The work shall cover primary care, emergency access, behavioral health, dental, endocrinology/diabetes, nephrology/dialysis, rheumatology, and other service categories approved by the Government.

The contractor shall integrate IHS direct care, Tribal 638, urban Indian, and approved non-IHS supply data and shall document the data source hierarchy used for each layer. Federal data shall be used as primary sources for population and disease burden when provided or approved by the Government. Approved commercial supply datasets may be used when available and affordable. If commercial datasets are unavailable or cost-prohibitive, the contractor shall document the substitute data hierarchy and the resulting limitations, including any AI/AN miscoding caveats associated with external data.

This GIS effort shall coordinate closely with the companion Senior Health Economist effort, shall furnish spatial outputs in forms that can be consumed directly by economic models, and shall provide methods documentation sufficient for the Government to reproduce or audit the work after contract completion.

The contractor shall conduct business between the hours of 8:00 AM and 4:30 PM Eastern Time, Monday through Friday, except on Federal holidays or when the Government facility is closed due to local or national emergencies, administrative closings, or similar Government-directed facility closings. The contractor shall maintain adequate availability for the uninterrupted performance of all tasks defined in the statement of work when the Government facility is not closed for these reasons.

The work under this contract will be performed virtually approximately 95 percent of the time, except when in-person identity verification, data onboarding, or other Government-approved activities require person-to-person contact.

The anticipated period of performance is one base period (12 months) and four option periods.

THIS PRE-SOLICITATION NOTICE IS NOT A REQUEST FOR COMPETITIVE PURCHASE ORDERS; however, interested firms may submit a capability statement in response to the above requirement by 5:00 PM Eastern Time on 19 JUNE 2026, to Dan Poehling, Contracting Officer, at daniel.poehling@ihs.gov.  A determination not to open competition-based responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government.