Q and A Session III.docx

Q&A Session III IHS RFP Clinical Video Telehealth Services Response in Red within Table

Question Response

Does the Government want offerors to price the option of scaling up to 20,000 licenses?

If so, can offerors add a column to Schedule B?

Yes, and Yes.

How and where will the Value Added Section C.2.5 be reviewed and evaluated? It is not referenced in the Instructions or Evaluation Criteria.

Is it included in page count?

Proposed value added methods are not included in the evaluation section as providing any additional features, benefits and value your business may have is not an evaluation criteria. Information provided in response to section C.2.5 is not included in the page count.

The government states under C.2.1 Business and Clinical Requirements Number 2 that: “An option for IHS to acquire up to 20,000 licenses for expansion”;

Please clarify: Is the 20,000 referring to Providers or Encounters?

20,000 Providers

Please confirm the Government would accept the following information as supporting price documentation: a breakdown of GSA Labor Categories, GSA Labor Hour Rate, and total proposed Labor Hours to support our FFP. If this is not acceptable, please describe the specific information the government is seeking You are welcome to utilize the same rates within your GSA contract. However, since the RFP was not submitted to GSA, please do not just simply submit your GSA contract price schedule as supporting pricing facts. You must include what is incorporated in you rates and/or the breakdown of your cost elements.

The Agency conducted market research that included demonstrations of several products in the past year.

On December 11, 2020, the IHS issued a Sources Sought notice that ended on December 21st, 2020. The project team evaluated thirteen responses to determine that a small business set-aside is appropriate.

Additionally, the IHS requested demonstrations from 9 vendors operating in the Clinical Video Telehealth market. The project team sent these companies questionnaires to better understand the market and available services.

Project Team members also attended the Telehealth Summit - hosted by HHS Deputy Secretary Eric Hargan on December 22nd, 2020.

These activities, along with interviews on knowledgeable individuals in industry/Government, allowed the project team to refine its requirements for this solicitation.

Are you asking for FedRAMP certification vs HHS-ATO? We are a small business; we can deliver this solution if that is the intent of IHS is HHS-ATO. Please clarify.

The IHS is asking for FedRAMP certification.

Please clarify if the past performance from Prime alone or Prime and Subcontractors (Team) FAR 15.305(a)(2)(iii) states that past performance evaluation should take into account past performance information regarding key personnel or subcontractors that will perform major or critical aspects of the requirement when such information is relevant to the acquisition.

Determining the teaming arrangement, performance and/or key personnel to be proposed by a subcontractor, the government will take into account, the subcontractor’s past performance history.

Please clarify whether past performance should be from Tele health services or can it be a broader/creative. Will you consider the past performance from State Agencies as well.

Past performance may include services related to clinical video telehealth or video conferencing solutions. The IHS will accept past performance with federal Departments/Agencies, tribal, state and local governments.

How many key personnel resources are required for this RFP submission? Do we need to submit the actual resume or representative resume?

The proposed labor mix, to include Key Personnel, is at the sole discretion of the Offeror and is predicated upon their own interpretation of the PWS requirements. The Offeror shall provide a breakdown and discussion of all key personnel proposed to support the execution of the requirement and describe all proposed labor resources, which include labor category, hours per labor category and qualification of all proposed. It is unclear what is meant by “representative resume”. However, it is the expectation of the Government that any resumes submitted will consist of information germane to the solicitation and PWS requirements.

Please clarify if the Key personnel resumes should be from the past performance references / projects Resumes for Key Personnel should come directly from the Key Personnel.

What is the maximum number of h.323/SIP endpoint that would be simultaneously connected?

Section C.2.1 states, “The weekly high average number of audio or video telehealth conferences during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic is 30,000.” That equates to a weekly average of approximately 7,500, which equates to 1,500 per day in a standard 5-day work week. Assume 8 hours of telehealth sessions per day to get a rate of approximately 188 telehealth sessions per hour. Assume an average of 188 telehealth sessions may be simultaneous since IHS does not collect data on modalities used in telehealth.

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). The requirement in Section C.2.1, Table 1, Item 12 states, “The Contractor shall also describe its experience integrating scheduling with Electronic Health Record (EHR)/Practice Management systems.” The requirement only refers to integrating scheduling and not other data. Although, proposing an approach to integrate other types of data in RPMS will be considered a proposal strength.

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.

Many IHS clinicians use Cisco Room Kits to conduct telehealth sessions without a computer connected to the unit. These Room Kits are configured to use a Cisco Bridge. One scenario is to allow direct calls from a physician using a Room Kit to a telehealth session with a patient who uses the WebRTC client.

Not meeting this SIP/H.323 requirement may be considered a proposal deficiency or weakness.

Does the full application need to be in a FedRAMP environment, or if only a portion was in a FedRAMP environment (video services) would that be acceptable?

If an organization has a solution deployed in other high security environments, will IHS take consideration of these environments rather than FedRAMP?

If the Offeror is proposing a cloud service, then the complete service must FedRAMP certified.

Section C.2 states, “The IHS may only use cloud services that have obtained a FedRAMP Moderate or High Impact Authority to Operate (ATO), also referred to as a FedRAMP certified cloud service. The Contractor shall provide evidence in its proposal that the proposed solution is FedRAMP certified or meets the requirements to become FedRAMP certified within 60 days of the contract period of performance start date.”

Offers may propose non-cloud services hosted in a secure datacenter rated FISMA High, but the IHS prefers more scalable cloud-based solutions rather than those hosted from private data centers.

Is IHS ok with us responding by text, without the table, or is filling out the table the full requirement?

There is no requirement to fill out the table to check Fully Deliver, Partially Deliver, or Cannot Deliver. This is a tool for IHS evaluators to use when rating proposals. Please include sufficient information in your written responses for IHS to evaluate those items in the tables.

In the Price Schedule table, under the table heading Unit of Measure, would the Government clarify what constitutes a “JOB?”

The Government utilizes the Unit of Measure (UoM) “JOB” in order to process payments made on a variable and/or reoccurring basis. As such, the awarded Contractor will be authorized partial delivery payments monthly, for services.

Please confirm that CLINS 0001, 1001, 2001, 3001, 4001 are for the annual CVT platform pricing only.

Yes, CLINs denoted as X-001 (base and option periods) consist of the planning, coordination, development, implementation, delivery, and quality assurance of the requested CVT solution IAW the requirements of the PWS. Training and Helpdesk support are considered ancillary requirements and have been broken out accordingly for each performance period.