Q301--Abbott I-Stat Cost Per Test for Creatinine and Troponin Testing

The Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Health Administration, Network Contracting Office (NCO) 17, has awarded a Firm-Fixed priced, Base plus (4) Option Year contract to Abbott Laboratories, Inc. using their GSA Contract for

procurement of the following services:

Creatinine and Troponin Cost Per Test Reagent Agreement to include i-STAT instruments, service, and supplies.

To avoid any wastage in resources, the services can only be conducted by Abbott Laboratories, Inc., as they are the sole source of supplying Technical Support for their instruments. Only Abbott Laboratories, Inc. trained and authorized service technicians

are qualified to work on this equipment. Abbott Laboratories, Inc. is both the

manufacturer and exclusive OEM parts supplier for instrumentation supporting their

anatomical pathology equipment.

The Abbott Laboratories, Inc. instrumentation is government leased and, to procure a

new instrumentation to accommodate different servicing would not provide best value to

the taxpayer, and more importantly could potentially delay patient care.

These consumables will be used at the VA North Texas Health Care System

(VANTHCS) facilities, as part of the Pathology & Laboratory Medicine Services, located

at the Dallas VA Medical Center. Due to the proprietary nature of the instrumentation, it

is essential that only Certified Abbott Laboratories, Inc. Field Service Engineer’s (FSE)

work on the i-STAT instrumentation.