Q and A Session II.docx

Q&A Session II IHS RFP Clinical Video Telehealth Services Response in Red within Table Note: Please be aware that the question concerning C.3.1 (Polycom) is from Q&A Session I, and the response is being revised. This is a significant change to the Q&A I response and will be included in Amendment II of the RFP.

Question Response

Section C.2.2 Table 2, Requirement #5 states, “Capable of supporting the SIP, H.323, or H.264 standards to allow communication between video teleconferencing commercial hardware such as the Cisco codecs and roomkits. The Contractor shall describe how many SIP endpoints and/or concurrent gateway calls the solution can support.” This requirement is for the provider-side only. The requirement shall support the provider-side of patient-to-provider telehealth sessions. It shall also facilitate provider-to-provider telehealth sessions where both providers may have codecs or roomkits to communicate with each other.

Polycom and Cisco compatible Does this require response?

Section C.3.1 is explaining what is required for contract performance, not for proposal response. However, Section C.2.2, Table 2, list item #5 requires a proposal response and is amended as follows:

“Capable of supporting the SIP, H.323, or H.264 standards to allow communication between video teleconferencing commercial hardware such as the Cisco or Polycom codecs and roomkits. The Contractor shall describe how many SIP endpoints and/or concurrent gateway calls the solution can support;”

Will the Government accept a smaller font than 12 point for graphics and tables?

Yes, graphics and tables may be 10 point or larger font size.

Will the Government consider allowing key personnel resumes to be outside of the 50 page limit?

Yes, key personnel resumes may be outside of the 50 page limit.

As the Government is looking for a COTS Telehealth solution, some commercial companies and partners will not have Past Performance in PPIRS. For Past Performance programs without CPARS, will the Government be contacting references directly or would the Government consider accepting questionnaires filled out by the program references?

For past performance information, the Government will contact references directly when the information is provided by the contractor in a questionnaire format and when the reference is submitted directly. No matter the format the reference is submitted, the Government will contact and verify.

Does the Government have a preference for slide layout or size for the oral proposal slides?

The government does not have a preference for slide layout or size for the oral proposal slides.

L.4 Electronic Submission of Proposals

Section L.3.1.B states: "Submit price supporting documentation and any price assumptions."

Section L.4 states: "Assumptions will not be accepted as a part of the proposal."

Would the Government clarify as to whether offerors to submit assumptions made during for proposal purposes?

L.3.1 Price “Assumptions” – means the methodology for determining any discounted rates and other pricing approaches.

L.4 “Assumptions” will not be accepted – means be certain. Ask a question if you are not certain. The government may not take into consideration, that a contractor was not certain of any aspect of the RFP unless it is beyond the scope of one individual contractor.

The RFP states: "Presentation media is limited to computer-based graphics of the offeror’s choice or normal viewgraph slides displayed using an appropriate projector. No other media may be used. The offeror shall be responsible for any equipment necessary for the presentation."

Would the Government clarify if offerors will be allowed to demonstrate their telehealth solution real time or if they should plan on only demonstrating via screenshots in PowerPoint during the oral presentation?

Offerors may demonstrate their telehealth solution in real time or through embedded video within the PowerPoint presentation. The PowerPoint presentation shall be detailed enough for the government to evaluate the proposed solution in addition to real-time demonstrations.

If the Government will not accept live demonstrations during the orals, will they consider accepting embedded video links in the PowerPoint presentation? A real-time demonstration or embedded video demonstrations of the sessions would give the Government a better understanding of tool capabilities.

The Government will accept both live demonstrations during the orals and embedded video links in the Power Point presentation.

Would the Government specify a Period of Performance start date that offerors can use in determining their ability to be FedRAMP certified within 60 days?

Assume contract award is no later than 30 days from the written proposal deadline

What EHR(s) will IHS be looking to integrate with? And regarding integration, will integration need to be only with scheduling, or will data need to be integrated into the EHR as well? Example: Vitals and/or images and/or recordings (Steth) taken during the encounter sent back to medical record

The IHS EHR is called the Resource and Patient Management System (RPMS). This is the EHR that IHS may integrate with this clinical telehealth video solution.

The only requirement for integration is with scheduling at this time.

What is the use case and scenarios for h.323/SIP endpoints? Could IHS provide an example?

Would IHS be open to have web endpoints instead of the Cisco ones?

The IHS has several types of codecs and roomkits in use for telehealth today. For example, telebehavioral health primarily uses the Cisco DX80 series codecs. Many IHS providers prefer using hardware codec solutions instead of a web browser on a computer. The IHS requires the use of hardware codecs to conduct some telehealth sessions.

What is the timeframe for the contract to be awarded?

The maximum number of people in a telehealth encounter is five, but the IHS may use this solution to host video conferences between groups of medical providers with an unspecified maximum. Assume no more than fifty participants in a web conference.

Assume contract award is no later than 30 days from the written proposal deadline.