Contract Summaries

Empowering Health Care Simulation | Office of Healthcare Innovation and Learning (OHIL) | U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

Office of Healthcare Innovation and Learning (OHIL) is an organization situated under Veterans Health Administration’s (VHA) Office of Discovery, Education, and Affiliate Networks (DEAN) and serves as the thought leader for health care innovation and learning. Crux aids DEAN’s major enterprise transformation and modernization activities which positively impacted how VA delivers care to veterans. Crux is driven by the OHIL mission to provide high quality, effective, and efficient services to those responsible for providing care to veterans at all the points of the veterans’ health care experience in an effective, timely, and compassionate manner.

Crux is awarded this prime contract to support the four main VHA programs: Innovation Ecosystem (IE), Simulation Learning, Evaluation, Assessment, and Research Network (SimLEARN), Center for Care and Payment Innovation (CCPI), and Office of Advanced Manufacturing (OAM). The firm provides strategic communications, marketing, and engagement support services from a seasoned team of communication and event professionals to support the execution of innovative best practices, processes, standards, and procedures that focuses on new and emerging healthcare solutions and technologies.

● Strategic communications, marketing, and engagement
● Communications and marketing products
● Outreach events
● Interactive webinars and virtual engagement events
● Innovation challenges

Saving Veteran Lives | U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Office of Mental Health and Suicide Prevention’s (OMHSP) Suicide Prevention Program (SPP)

Ensuring that veterans have access to the support and resources they need to not only prevent suicide but to thrive is how The Crux Firm honors and respects their service and the sacrifices they’ve made. Crux, in collaboration with our joint venture partner under Sigil, has secured a contract to discover innovative ways to reach the nation’s diverse community of more than 20 million veterans with messages that will resonate with them and those who support them.

● Project management
● Strategic communications
● Creative development
● Research
● Social media
● Events
● Video
● Outreach
● Paid media
● Photography
● Web development
● Radio media tours

Empowering Veterans and Clinicians | U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Rocky Mountain Mental Illness Research Education and Clinical Center (MIRECC)

Rocky Mountain MIRECC is devoted to suicide prevention and focuses on research, education, and clinical care to reduce suicidal ideation and behaviors amongst veterans through programs such as Suicide Risk Management (SRM), Clinical Practice Guideline (CPG), and the National Center for Veterans Financial Well-Being (FINVET). Crux has secured a contract under our joint venture, Sigil, to improve suicide risk assessment and management service delivery for veterans and clinicians through website, promotional, and technical support and development.

● Project management
● Web development and maintenance
● Digital design and user experience
● Creative development
● Market analysis
● Strategic communications
● Video

Sharing Nurses Stories | U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Office of Nursing Services (ONS)

VA’s ONS provides the infrastructure and programs that ensure that VA nurses, the largest nursing workforce in the nation, have access to the resources they need to deliver the best care to veterans. Crux, under our joint venture, CruxDCG, was selected to convey the importance of this work and highlight nurses’ accomplishments through professionally developed annual reports with human-centric design, empathetic content, and inclusive imagery. In recognition of our excellent work on the annual reports, ONS expanded the base contract to include communications support for its Nurses Month activities. Crux created a strategic and robust plan to honor all that VA nurses do in support of Veterans.

● Project management
● Digital and creative services
● Strategic communications
● Technical writing
● Traditional print design

Attracting, Supporting, and Retaining Talented Nurses | U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Office of Nursing Services (ONS)

VA nurses have repeatedly proven they are the most powerful, compassionate, and determined workforce in the care they provide to more than nine million Veterans in 1,255 health care facilities across the nation. ONS wants to ensure that the VA nursing workforce has full support through disruptive staffing shortages and other challenges seen by many American health care institutions. We have secured this contract under our joint venture, Sigil. Crux develops strategies and programs to support the implementation of the ONS Nursing Workforce Strategic Plan (NWSP) to attract nurses to VA with the goal of retaining them for their full career.

● Project management
● Change management
● Training development
● Strategic communications
● Video

Exploring Expanded Access to Mental Health Care | Project NorthStar | U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

Project NorthStar focuses on veterans who need help addressing mental health and suicidal ideation but never enroll in VHA or reach out for support. Its main purpose was to help the Mission Daybreak evaluators choose 20-30 impactful and viable solutions (out of the thousands of submissions) for their $20M Mission Daybreak suicide prevention grand challenge. Crux secured this prime contract to bolster the VA's initiatives in this domain. Our involvement encompassed comprehensive research and veteran interviews, exploring key relationships, environmental factors, programs, and organizations that support veterans and explored where they could use more resources. Our work supported VA’s Mission Daybreak, part of VA’s 10-year strategy to end veteran suicide through a comprehensive, public health approach. Under Project NorthStar, Crux used veteran personas to better understand why they are not enrolled in VHA and provided guidance to Mission Daybreak evaluators to identify scalable, realistic, and impactful solutions.

Crux conducted discovery and landscape analysis through synthesis of academic publications and real-world use cases as they related to veteran suicide in combination with in-person interviews of veterans once considered to be at high risk of suicide. Crux also led the design and storytelling of the discovery and landscape analysis through graphic visualizations in a read-ahead for Mission Daybreak evaluators.

● Creative design services
● Graphics and storytelling visualization
● Research and analysis
● Interviews
● Strategic communications consultation

Modernizing Tools and Services for Mission Success | Veterans Health Administration (VHA) Workforce Management and Consulting (WMC), HR Modernization Transformation. (Trilogy Federal LLC under the VA Task Order Proposal Response (TOPR) 72)

Human Resources Modernization is a critical component in ensuring VHA’s employees have the resources and services they need to effectively perform their critical mission. This task order allowed for Crux to contribute to reorganizing HR structures, functions, and resources into new shared service models. Crux provided subject matter expertise in VHA strategic communications and organizational change management as well as oversight and leadership with program and project management activities from the government’s award, and as directed by the Trilogy Program Manager. Under the Task Order, Crux contributed the following: organizational change management and strategic communications leadership, development of program and project management documents, and graphics and template design support.

● Organizational Change Management
● Strategic communications consultation and leadership
● Documentation
● Graphic design

Navigating the 24/7 News Cycle | U.S. Department of the Army, Office of the Chief of Public Affairs (OCPA)

To stay ahead of a nearly instantaneous news cycle, Crux, in collaboration with our joint venture partner under CruxDCG is awarded this contract to implement a strategy enabling the Army to effectively tell its story–externally to key audiences across the American public, on Capitol Hill and in industry, and internally to the soldiers and their families who compose the greatest land-based fighting force in the world. This proactive communication approach optimizes OCPA's ability to synchronize messages, bring awareness to new audiences, and increase efficiency across multiple communication channels.

● Strategic communications
● Creative development
● Research
● Social Media
● Events
● Media relations
● Media monitoring

Showcasing Innovative Breakthroughs for Veterans' Health Care | Innovation Experience (iEX) | Office of Healthcare Innovation and Learning (OHIL) | U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) celebrates emerging innovations, technologies, and collaborations that forge the future of Veteran health care at the annual Innovation Experience(iEX) event, hosted by the VHA Office of Healthcare Innovation and Learning (OHIL). In addition to speakers, panels, and networking opportunities, this years’ exhibit hall features live human-centered design discovery interviewing and user experiencing testing of many VA-designed prototypes, allowing Veterans’ to contribute their experiences and feedback to upcoming designs. Crux was selected to plan and manage this multi-day event from strategic planning through execution, allowing for expanded recognition of, and participation by, VHA innovators and stakeholders external to the VA.

Crux has been awarded this prime contract to provide iEX event management support and ensure that participants experience a coordinated, multi-faceted event, to include pre- and during-event logistical needs, marketing communications materials, speaker scriptwriting, networking engagement, and more.

● Strategic event communications
● Print and marketing products
● Video
● Photography
● Event setup and logistics
● Exhibit planning and setup
● Content preparation and scriptwriting
● Award ceremony and keynote speaker support