REQUEST FOR EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST (reoi) AND THE TERMS OF REFERENCE (tor) for Electronic Prescription

REQUEST FOR EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST (reoi)

AND THE

TERMS OF REFERENCE (tor)

(CONSULTING SERVICES – FIRMS SELECTION)

COUNTRY:                                       Islamic Republic of Afghanistan

IMPLEMENTING AGENCY:            Ministry of Communications and IT (MCIT)

                                                                                NAME OF THE PROJECT:             Electronic Prescription

SECTOR:                                          Information and Communications Technology (ICT)

CONSULTING SERVICES:             Consultancy Firm to develop electronic prescription centralize system and implementing policy

CONTRACT TYPE:                                   Consultancy by a Firm Contract-QCBS-Lump sum

DURATION OF ASSIGNMENT:  Six months

DUTY STATION:                            Kabul, Afghanistan

CONTRACT REFERENCE NO:  MCIT/EGRC II/2017/C-1

1. Background

Ministry of Communications and IT (MCIT) aims to provide high quality Communications, IT and Postal Services for the Afghan people at affordable prices. The ministry has been actively advocating for a positive change in the society by connecting the Afghan people to the knowledge resources, to enable them to improve the quality of their lives. The vision of the Ministry of Communications and IT (MCIT) is to transform Afghanistan into an Information Society. Priorities of MCIT for the next five years are: 

• To deliver the Telecom and IT services to remote areas throughout the country.
• To supply high speed internet to the people in Afghanistan.
• To design, develop and deploy the technical platform of the National Identity Card (NID) and provide technical assistance to the Ministry of Interior (MoI) on the successful implementation of the e-ID Card Project.
• To expand the fiber optic networks in the country.
• To replace the existing analogue television (TV) broadcasting systems by digital TV broadcasting systems in the country and strengthen the regulations for broadcasting companies.
• To enhance the capacity of the Afghan government by introducing the concept of e-Government and encourage all the ministries to integrate ICT within their main work.
• EGRC-II: EGRC is USAID ‘on budget funded project based on Milestone in the premises of MCIT. This center’’ became a source of technical expertise and skills, advice and guidance for development and deployment of E-Government in the ministries and provides timely, high- quality advice, training, consulting and audit services in the area of e- government to various ministries of GoA on August 21, 2015. The objective of EGRC Project is to introduce streamlined, modern and
• Effective monitoring and evaluation and enhance the capacity of Government Employees.

2. Objectives of the Assignment

2.1 EGRC II Long Term objectives:

Contribute to the attainment of the national security, social and economic development goals through efficient, effective, transparent and secure public governance.

2.2. EGRC II Immediate objectives:

To create capacity and provide timely, high quality advice, training, consulting and other services in the area of e-Government and cyber security to various ministries, departments and agencies of the Government of Afghanistan and donor supported development projects in order to facilitate and optimize application of information and communication technology in the public sector of Afghanistan and to catalyze e-government transformation in the country.

The intention of this assignment is to create awareness, capacity, and to catalyze the process of e governance in their respected ministries and government agencies.

3. Scope of the services

Currently, in Afghanistan doctors use different types of hand written prescription copies with limited information regarding patient medical history and allergies and also the unreadable handwriting of doctors is an important issue raised over years; because of unreadable handwriting and limited medical history of patient when pharmacists would actually give out medicines, there is a higher probability that they would make a mistake and a wrong medicine can have adverse effects on the health of an individual.

Electronic prescription will be a software package used by doctor and pharmacist for prescription in order to avoid manual prescription, other benefits of the system would be that it will be connected to the main database located in MoPH and the data will be updated to it regularly.

The electronic prescription can help doctors to record/receive accurate information regarding 1) Patient medical history, 2) medication with exact information (Amount, dose, number of days and other necessary descriptions), and 3) be able to review the history of treatment when revisiting. The electronic prescription can help pharmacists to 1) receive the prescription electronically with detail and readable information, and 2) record and manage the medicine stocking electronically.

As most of the residents in the country will benefit from the e-Prescription system so for this purpose Ministry of Communications and IT has decided to design and develop e-Prescription system based on the current requirements and the main purposes are to 1) decrease the rate of errors while writing prescription 2) record and manage the medicine stocking electronically and 3) have centralize medicine stocking database for MoPH to track the stocking, usage and expiration of medicines in national level; the e-Prescription software will be certified by MCIT and be accessible for doctors and pharmacists for free, furthermore MCIT will develop policies and utilization guidelines. Ministry of Public Health understands the importance of e-Prescription and will take necessary actions to train master trainers, mandate the use of e-Prescription certified software in private and public clinics and hospitals, will enforce the policies to make sure that e-Prescription software are used based on the expected methodology and the required IT infrastructure is available and maintained; it will be mandate for doctors and pharmacies to updated relevant records and data in MoPH main database at least in weekly basis.

3.1Partner Organizations

Ministry of Communications and IT and Ministry of Public Health will have joint effort to implement and enforce electronic prescription project. MCIT will lead the project procurement, management, drafting policies and guidelines, training of trainers, certification and maintenance; and National Medicine and Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority responsibility is to manage and maintain the central system, provide trainings for those you are required to use the software and enforce electronic prescription policies in order to be practices in clinics and hospitals. Initially NMHPRA will implement the e-prescription project in private clinics and hospitals in Kabul.

3.1.1Ministry of Communications and IT Responsibility

MCIT responsibility is:

• Management of the project implementation
• Current status assessment and designing the new system architecture
• Development and implementation of the new system
• Drafting Electronic prescription enforcement policy for MoPH
• Training and capacity building of involved government staff
• Certification and maintenance of the end product

3.1.2National Medicine and Healthcare Products Regulator Authority Responsibility

NMHPRA responsibility is:

• Procurement of required IT infrastructure necessary for the implementation of electronic prescription central system within MoPH
• Enforce the electronic prescription enforcement policy in clinics and other healthcare centres
• Introducing employees for training of trainers that will continue the training in future
• Dedicate human resources to manage and maintain the centralize system of electronic prescription

3.1. Assignment Aims:

The electronic prescription project aims develop electronic prescription centralized system and databased and implementation policy which will be certified by MCIT and will be available for free to doctors and pharmacists and will help MoPH to keep record of medicines stocked in drugstore and consumption by patients through prescription, and also propose the IT infrastructure which is required for maintaining the system within MoPH.

1. Outcomes:

The electronic prescription may have three sections which may operate as below:

3.2.1 Prescription – For Doctors

The prescription interface components shall have below functions, but not limited to:

• Write/review electronic prescription in e-prescription system and submit to the connected pharmaceutical store.
• The doctor will be able to edit/review patient medical history and allergies;
• And also based on the purpose of the project the doctor may be able to select medicine name (from the vocabulary not list of medicine recorded by the connected pharmacy) while writing to avoid spelling errors.
• Send at least weekly updates of the database to the MoPH main database and also be able to get updates of patient’s treatment and medication record from MoPH main database which is updated by other clinics.

3.2.2Pharmacy Management

The Pharmacy management interface components may have below functions, but not limited to:

• Record the medicine stock of pharmaceutical store in the database
• Receive prescription and patient history from the doctors connected with the pharmaceutical store system
• Deduct the purchased medicine from the stock record
• Send weekly updates of the database to the MoPH main database

3.2.3Ministry of Public Health

The MoPH interface components may have below functions, but not limited to:

• Main database to get weekly updates from the connected pharmaceutical stores and doctors
• Give updates of patients treatment and medication history to doctor’s prescription system
• The centralize system will have the ability to store all data entries of pharmaceutical and create a repository of medicine vocabulary, which can be used by doctors while writing the prescription and pharmacists while data entry the stock
• Be able to generate reports of 1) current medicine stocks national level (province, district, region) or per pharmaceutical store; 2) medicine consumed per week based on the district, province, region or national level; 3) treatment of disease/prescribed patient disease based on dose or amount of disease in district, province and national level; 4) notifications/exploration options of expired medicines in district, province, regions and national level; 5) notifications of not receiving weekly updates.
  1. Language:

The electronic Prescription system should be available in English and localized in both Pashtu and Dari languages.

3.4Scope of Work and Tasks

The contracted company is required to execute below phases for successful implementation of the project:

Phase 1: Assessment and analysis of current status of treatment, prescription and pharmacy in the country; analysis of required IT infrastructure and tools to utilize the system; analysis of best and adoptable international practices

Phase 2: Suggest e-Prescription system structure / architecture / modules / specifications/ list of technologies based on the assessment of current status and international best practices

Phase 3: Develop the e-Prescription system after the relevant stakeholder’s approval

Phase 4: Draft e-Prescription implementation and utilization guidelines and enforcement policies

Phase 5: Draft training guidelines and materials, provide training of trainers

Phase 6: Maintenance of the e-prescription software package for one year

Phase 7: Handover of system source code and sensitive information to MCIT

Phase 8: End of Project Report 

3.5Payment Structure and Deliverables

Payments will be made as per the following schedules:

1. 25 % of the Contract Value will be paid after submission of Report-1 (Physical Reporting Date in MCIT at Kabul), to be submitted by the company within 1.5 month of Contract Effective Date. This Report-1 should cover the following (Phase 1 & Phase 2):

Assessment and analysis of current status of prescription and medicine stocking in pharmacies, clinics and hospitals, analysis of required infrastructure for the utilization of e-prescription system in MoPH and in clinics, hospitals and pharmacies, suggestions for the expansion and upgrading of the system in national level.  Propose e-Prescription system structure / architecture / modules / specifications and technologies based on the assessment and international best practices and analysis of international best practices identifying appropriate and adoptable solutions. Analysis of best international practices for the e-prescription system, like appropriate methodologies for patients to be identified and be able to get medicines from pharmaceutical stores or re-visit to clinics and hospitals.

1. 25 % of the Contract Value will be paid after submission of Report-2, to be submitted within 4.5 months of Contract Effective Date. This Report-2 should cover the following (Phase 3):

After the approval of involved stakeholders on the proposed system architecture and components as in Phase 2, develop the e-Prescription system and implementation mechanism based on the analysis of current status and international practices.

1. 25 % of the Contract Value will be paid after submission of Report-3, to be submitted within 5.5 months of Contract Effective Date. This Report-3 should cover the following (Phase 4 & Phase 5):

E-Prescription software user/operation manuals and guidelines; and enforcement policies. Training guidelines and materials for continuous training by MoPH, provide training to master trainers.

1. 25 % of the Contract Value will be paid after submission of Report-4, to be submitted within 6 months of Contract Effective Date. This Report-4 should cover the following (Phase 6, Phase 7 & Phase 8):

Finalized Report on all the Tasks as given in the Scope of Work for this Assignment; Report on training imparted to the introduced staff. Formal handover of the source code and sensitive information to MCIT introduced person and one year maintenance of the system.

Other deliverables: These include overall project implementation plan, weekly and monthly briefings to e-Government Directorate/MCIT, e-Government Consulting and Advisory Services Dept. /EGRC II Project and NMHPRA/Ministry of Public Health.

All the reports as outlined above shall:

1. be written such that they stand alone, without the reader needing to refer to other documents;
2. shall include a dated cover letter with the distribution list and shall note key issues of interest in the report for management’s attention;
3. All the Reports (03 Copies-printed and signed + Soft Copies in CDs) should be submitted to: One Set to e-Government Advisory Services Department, EGRC II project; One Set to e-Government Directorate; One Set to NMHPRA/Ministry of Public Health.

3.6 Payment Terms

EGRC-II/MCIT will process the payment of firm or consultant after completion and approval of each deliverable (Percentage) from both MCIT/IT DM/e-Government Directorate/EGRC II Project Management and USAID. For payment process formal approval is required by the DM IT and e-Government Directorate of the Invoice, Activity Sheet and brief Report with each Invoice, all to be submitted both in English and Dari or Pashtu languages. Formats will be provided by EGRC II project, e-Government Directorate of MCIT.

4. Qualification Requirements/Short listing Criteria

Ministry of Communications and IT (MCIT), GoIRA, now invites eligible consulting firms (“Consultants”) to indicate their interest in providing the services described under paragraph 3 above. The interested company should have demonstrated experience in the field related to this proposal. They should be composed of a team of skilled professionals with the following minimum requirements, qualifications and experience:

The short listing criteria are:

• The consultant shall demonstrate having sound financial situation and capacity by submitting financial audit report with annual turnover of at least US$ 200,000.00 for any of the last 3 years through their relevant and related Consultancy Services in IT and e-Government Services Fields
• The consultant shall also provide proven experiences of having executed at least two contracts of similar nature for the last five years, (each) with the value of minimum US$ 60,000.00. 
• Organizational Structure
• Manpower with qualifications, technical and professional competence necessary for successful implementation of the assignment (the individual expert’s bio data is not required)
• Eligibility requirements in compliance with Article 16 of Afghanistan Public Procurement Law. The consultants should also provide a copy of the certification of incorporation/ business license in its EOI. 
• Extensive experience in setting up/customization of electronic prescription systems for a similar organization
• Strong experience in development of web-based applications and databases
• Good knowledge of electronic prescription development methodology and best practices
• Good analytical, problem solving and facilitating skills with a high sense of responsibilities and result-orientation
• Proven experience in the development and design of electronic prescription system projects during last five years

5. Method of Selection

A Consultant will be selected in accordance with the Quality and Cost based Budget Selection (QCBS) defined in Afghanistan Public Procurement Law and Procedures.

6. Submission of EOI

Expression of Interest (EOIs) must be delivered as Printed Copies in English and in any one Local Language (Dari/Pashtu), with one CD having MS-Word copy of the EOIs and the related Documents. EOIs and the related Qualification and Experience Documents should not be submitted by any Electronic Means. Any EOI received by E-MAIL or by Electronic Means will be rejected.

Printed Copies of the EOIs and all the Related Documents and one CD having MS-Word Copy of all the submitted Documents should be submitted to the following Address by 11, Feb, 2017 (15:00 Kabul Local Time). Further information in respect to this REOI can be obtained at the address below by email or in person during office hours [08:00-04:00 Hours].

Foreign Procurement Department (FPD) (Attn: Mr. Samimullah Samim)

General Manager for External Procurements;

Procurement Department, Ministry of Communications and IT (MCIT)

Mohammad Jan Khan Watt; Kabul, Afghanistan

Phone: Office: +93 20 210 37 41; Cell: +93 700 222 009;

Web site: www.mcit.gov.af

Any queries on the position may also be addressed to the above mentioned email address palwasha.hashimi@mcit.gov.af; idpalwasha@gmail.com; with CC to: (fpd@mcit.gov.af) -- latest one week before the deadline for submission of expression of interest.

All the E-Mails must be addressed to: fpd@mcit.gov.af; palwasha.hashimi@mcit.gov.af; idpalwasha@gmail.com