- HHS is sunsetting all NITAAC governmentwide acquisition contracts
- The decision covers CIO-SP3, its small business counterpart and CIO-CS
- The shutdown follows the cancellation of CIO-SP4
The Department of Health and Human Services will retire all governmentwide acquisition contracts run by the National Institutes of Health Information Technology Acquisition and Assessment Center, or NITAAC, on Oct. 29.
In a June 9 notice to contract holders and the acquisition community, NITAAC said the HHS senior procurement executive office made the determination following a strategic review to consolidate procurement, cut duplication and improve efficiency, in accordance with Executive Order 14240 and Office of Management and Budget memorandum M-25-31. The decision covers the Chief Information Officer-Solutions and Partners 3, CIO-SP3 Small Business and CIO-Commodities and Solutions vehicles.
NITAAC support will shrink in step with declining workload through Dec. 31, 2028, after which HHS and NIH will shut down all program functions, including fee collection and administration of assisted orders. Agencies will turn to existing General Services Administration vehicles and other sources for future needs.
When Do NITAAC Ordering Restrictions Take Effect?
Restrictions began taking hold before the notice was issued. As of June 8, agencies may not award new orders with a period of performance stretching past Dec. 31, 2028, and contract holders are instructed to reject any that do. Oct. 29 is the last day to place new orders under any NITAAC GWAC. All work, including option periods on orders awarded on or after June 8, must conclude by the end of 2028.
The notice also instructs contracting officials to download their order file documents from NITAAC’s eGOS system before the program’s closure.
The October sunset cuts short CIO-SP3’s previously planned run. NITAAC had extended that vehicle’s expiration to April 29, 2027, earlier this year as a bridge for customers.
Why Was CIO-SP4 Canceled?
The shutdown notice follows the cancellation of CIO-SP4, the potential $50 billion follow-on GWAC meant to succeed CIO-SP3. In a filing with the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, NITAAC said the cancellation aligned with the administration’s procurement consolidation executive order and that HHS had moved away from re-evaluating existing offers.
CIO-SP4 had been troubled long before then. Solicited in May 2021 as a 10-year vehicle spanning health IT, biomedical research support, cybersecurity, cloud and software development services, it drew protests beginning in 2022 and racked up 350 protest filings in fiscal year 2023 alone, according to the Government Accountability Office.
