Purpose

The objective of our examination was to determine whether Downstate conducted an appropriate procurement under contract TQ00015 for the services provided by Growe and paid reasonable prices for those services.

Background

In January 2009 through federal legislation, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services set new standards for electronic medical health records called Meaningful Use (MU) and ICD-10. In November 2013, the Health Science Center at Brooklyn Foundation, Inc. entered into a non-competitive agreement with Growe for healthcare IT services to implement MU and ICD-10 at Downstate. In April 2014, Downstate entered into a subsequent, State-funded, non-competitive, single-source contract with Growe under Part Q of Chapter 56 of the Laws of 2013 (Part Q). Neither the Foundation contract nor the contract SUNY let under Part Q were subject to our Office’s pre-audit and approval.

Key Findings

Downstate paid up to $1.3 million more than necessary by using a non-competitive procurement to obtain IT healthcare services rather than bidding the services or using existing competitive contracts available to Downstate. We found the decision to use the non-competitive contract was based on unsupported claims from Downstate officials.

Key Recommendations

• Ensure that future Downstate requests to let non-competitive, single source contracts are supported by sufficient, appropriate evidence that justify the need to rule out normal procurement processes.
• Direct Downstate to timely and competitively procure services to promote fairness in contracting with the business community, facilitate the best possible price for the University and avoid unnecessary time constraints.