AHCA RFI 001-2223_SDOH_Final.pdf

STATE OF FLORIDA

AGENCY FOR HEALTH CARE ADMINISTRATION

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

SOCIAL SERVICE IT CONNECTOR

RFI RELEASE DATE: August 26, 2022

AHCA RFI 001-22/23, Page 1 of 7

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. GENERAL INFORMATION

II. RFI RESPONSE INSTRUCTIONS

III. PUBLIC RECORDS EXEMPTIONS, TRADE SECRET OR PROPRIETARY

INFORMATION

IV. RESPONSE SUBMISSION

V. COSTS

VI. QUESTIONS

VII. AGENCY FOR HEALTH CARE ADMINISTRATION WEBSITE

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AHCA RFI 001-22/23, Page 2 of 7

I. GENERAL INFORMATION

A. Request for Information Process This is a Request for Information (RFI) as defined in Section 287.012(22), Florida Statutes (F.S.), for planning purposes. This RFI is issued by the State of Florida, Agency for Health Care Administration (the Agency), to solicit information regarding available providers and solutions for the services described herein.

An RFI is not a method of procurement. Responses to an RFI are not offers and shall not be accepted by the Agency to form a binding Contract. This RFI and Responses to it shall not result in the execution of a contract with the Agency. By submitting a Response to this RFI, a Vendor is not prohibited from responding to any related subsequent solicitation. This RFI may be used for purposes of determining whether to competitively procure a commodity or contractual service, determining what solicitation process to use, or researching general, special, and/or technical specifications for a solicitation. The Agency reserves the right to utilize the information gathered through the RFI process to develop a scope of services, which may be incorporated into a contract using a statutorily approved method of procurement.

B. Background Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) are the circumstances in which people are born, grow up, live, work, and age and the conditions or factors that impact the quality of healthcare that they receive and outcomes they experience. The impact of SDOH, including food insecurity, housing instability, economic instability, and interpersonal violence, on a person’s health and wellbeing, as well as on health care utilization and cost, is well-established. Currently, 90% of health care spending in the United States is on medical care in a hospital or doctor’s office.

Access to medical services is crucial to being healthy. But research shows that up to 70% of a person’s overall health is driven by these other social and environmental factors and the behavior influenced by them. Investing into these factors can improve health and result in significant return on investment and health care cost savings.

The Agency intends to build a closed-loop referral system (CLRS) to assist healthcare providers in addressing SDOH of Floridians.

C. Purpose

This RFI seeks to obtain information on the available Vendor or Community-Based operating referral systems, the services these systems provide, depth of market penetration in Florida, and the technical and security capabilities of the platform.

The purpose of the RFI is to acquire information on the current services provided by Vendors, persons or entities including Community-Based organizations (CBOs) offering services, for a CLRS to address SDOH.

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D. Goals

The Agency is interested in partnering with a vendor or vendors to help accomplish its goal to address the health-related social needs of its beneficiaries by establishing and maintaining a Community Resource Platform (CRP). The vendors or CBOs will establish and operate a system to accomplish the following goals:

1) Improve coordination between community based and health care organizations with members’/patients’/clients’ consent:

• Make it easy for referring organization to convey key information about the client.

• Make it easy for organization receiving the referral to close the loop with the referring organization by conveying the outcome of the referral (e.g., service delivered and date).

• Develop, operate, host, and maintain an Internet -based system that supports the ability of health care entities and community agencies to partner in identifying and addressing the social needs of those they serve.

The system and all associated data must be hosted and remain in continental United States.

• Develop and train healthcare entities and CBO networks by demonstrating the value of participation and by onboarding, training, and providing technical assistance.

2) Improve standardized data capture, data sharing, and data use for:

• Screenings and assessments.

• Diagnosis and interventions.

• Aggregations for analytics (e.g., for population health management and measurement.)

3) Support the following goals to meet Florida’s Health Information Technology (HIT) goals:

• Public and Population Health: Use HIT to improve public and population health by supporting its role in the efficient collection, sharing, and analysis of key data. For example, help eliminate health disparities by increasing the ability to collect data to inform policy and interventions.

• Health Systems Transformation and Quality of Care: Ensure that HIT activities and investments help Floridians to receive the highest quality of care in the right place at the right time. For example, HIT should support behavioral health data-sharing needs between treating providers, improve efforts to address health disparities, and assist providers and patients during transition of care.

The Agency seeks an experienced vendor or vendors that can implement an already existing platform that is person-centered and built to be as seamless as possible for healthcare providers and the general public. It must have flexible architecture to facilitate statewide adoption and allow for interfaces and

AHCA RFI 001-22/23, Page 4 of 7 integration to native technology systems and existing SDOH community infrastructure. Finally, its data model and architecture must allow it to provide the State with data to better understand how to optimize health and well-being for all people.

D. Statement of Need

To accomplish the above goals, the Agency seeks a public, cloud-based solution (the Solution) that is centered on Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), delivered as Software as a Service (SaaS), and meets all the following requirements:

• Non-Clinical Needs Assessment: A standardized Non-Clinical Needs Assessment embedded within the Solution.

• Community Resources Directory: Ability to match Non-Clinical Needs Assessment Results with a comprehensive, interactive, and up-to-date Community Resources Directory, with each authorized User able to identify the CBOs service-related information including, but not limited to, hours of operation by location, address, service eligibility requirements, capacities, and limitations. The Community Resource Directory shall be available via a public domain to Non-Authenticated Users to conduct searches for available resources.

• Non-Clinical Risk Factors Referral System: Ability to send Referrals to CBOs, act as a conduit for CBOs to electronically receive Referrals and track the Referral outcomes.

• Referral Tracking: Capability to associate Referrals to a Member, and maintain, monitor, and track each referral over time.

• Interoperability: Ability to receive information from and send information to electronic health records systems to communicate with healthcare providers.

• Data Analytics: Enable Authorized User(s) to generate operational data and analytics from the Solution.

II. RFI RESPONSE INSTRUCTIONS

Respondents to this RFI are asked to be thorough, but concise. The RFI Response should include the following:

A. The Respondent’s name; place of business address(s); Web Site address, if applicable; and contact information, including representative name and alternate, with telephone number(s) and e-mail address(s);

B. A statement of interest in the services outlined in this RFI, including an outline of a specific product, concept, technology, or approach that would meet the goals and requirements described in this RFI;

C. A description of the Respondent’s business and its experience as it relates to the services outlined in this RFI.

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D. A description of how the Respondent’s approach will offer advantages or improvements. The description should also identify known or potential concerns with the approach.

E. Vendor’s Background: Provide a brief company profile, including information indicating the company’s capabilities and experience in successfully completing a project of this description. Include in this description, the length of time your company has been in business, current number of employees, current number of states you work in, and your experience working with state agencies, including aspects of the state contract that allow for successful project implementation and outcomes. Provide a list of any relevant federal or state contracts you have held in the past five years, including any contracts with the General Services Administration (GSA). Include a brief description of the contract, the contract effective dates, and contact information for the individuals who manage or are associated with those federal and state contracts.

A brief profile should be included for any subcontractors or partners that may be part of the collaboration.

Also include in your profile any pertinent information which differentiates your business from others in the SDOH space, such as any recognitions or awards.

F. Network Capabilities: Describe how your solution operates to serve your contracted clients, how service providers are vetted and maintained, and what is your current sustainability model. Include information on the status of your service network and any connectivity to health care entities (providers, plans, etc.). Include information on integration with other systems, if applicable. Describe your experience working with other vendors, government agencies, and non-profit organizations at local, regional, and national levels to address not only health care but also SDOH. Narrate your business model and how you incentivize potential users to participate in your network.

G. Business Requirements: Provide a description of how the vendor will address each of the goals and needs identified in this RFI and provide commentary on the feasibility of successfully implementing this project. Describe your methods for managing and utilizing SDOH data and pulling data from disparate sources seamlessly. Include an example of your experience and success addressing SDOH to improve population health outcomes. Discuss how you manage and update the community resource directory. Explain how you support your clients from implementation through maintenance of your system and your approach to configure and implement the system. Provide information on what data analytics your system provides to measure outcomes and program efficiency and identity the population of need. Describe how many screening tools are available through your system, and how they are used by users. Provide your experience helping providers and CBOs sign up for and integrate the platform into their operations.

Describe the level of skills users need to utilize your system and what training and support is available after implementation.

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H. Closed Loop Verification: Describe the closed-loop referral system, referrals-and outcomes-tracking solutions offered by your organization. Explain how you connect health care and social care providers through your system. Describe any potential barriers for your technology in providing closed-loop solution or integrating into native systems. Explain how your system provides bidirectional communication between healthcare providers, social service providers, and government agencies.

I. Technical Requirements: Describe the technical capabilities that are unique to your products and how they provide excellent service in the SDOH space. Explain how your technology does not integrate with major electronic health record (EHR) systems. List all Epic integration standards your products support and outline your system’s alignment with Florida HIE and Encounter Notification Services (ENS).

Provide details on how you incorporate feedback from your clients and partners to enhance and update your system. Describe how your organization keeps abreast of evolving healthcare information technologies and how you update your system to meet the changing needs of your clients. Provide an example of your exceptional technological innovation to share SDOH data. Notate what features/functionality health care clients particularly like about your product.

J. Privacy and Security: Explain your approach to privacy and confidentiality.

Describe what privacy and security tools and standards you provide to protect health data. Please provide information on any privacy and security credentials you hold. Describe your in-house expertise to handle data in a safe manner and what solution you provide for managing consent and user access. Describe your back-end process to prevent a security breach. Discuss how you identify, mitigate, and manage risks. If you have had a security breach, please provide any lessons learned.

III. PUBLIC RECORDS EXEMPTIONS, TRADE SECRET OR PROPRIETARY

INFORMATION

Any portion of the submitted Response which is asserted to be exempt from disclosure under Chapter 119, Florida Statutes, shall be clearly marked “exempt”, “confidential”, or “trade secret” (as applicable) and shall also contain the statutory basis for such claim on every page. Pages containing trade secret shall be marked “trade secret as defined in Section 812.081, Florida Statutes”. Failure to segregate and identify such portions shall constitute a waiver of any claimed exemption and the Agency will provide such records in response to public records requests without notifying the Respondent. Designating material simply as “proprietary” will not necessarily protect it from disclosure under Chapter 119, F.S. An entire Response should not be considered trade secret.

Respondents who fail to identify trade secret as directed herein acknowledge and agree that they waive any right or cause of action, civil or criminal, against the Agency for Health Care Administration, its employees and its representatives, for the release or disclosure of trade secret information not so identified.

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IV. RESPONSE SUBMISSION

Respondents to this RFI shall submit one (1) electronic copy of its Response. The Response shall not exceed one hundred (100) pages in length. The electronic format shall be submitted via e-mail. The software used to produce the electronic files must be Microsoft Word 2013 and/or Excel 2013 or newer. The electronic files must be logically named.

The Respondent shall also submit via e-mail one (1) electronic redacted copy of the Response suitable for release to the public. Any confidential or trade secret information covered under Section 812.081, Florida Statutes, should be either redacted or completely removed. The redacted Response shall be marked as the “redacted” copy and contain a transmittal letter authorizing release of the redacted version of the Response in the event the Agency receives a public records request.

Responses to this RFI shall be provided no later than 2:00 PM, Eastern Standard Time (EST), September 23, 2022. Responses shall be e-mailed to solicitation.questions@ahca.myflorida.com.

Responses shall be addressed to:

Cody Massa Procurement Officer Solicitation.questions@ahca.myflorida.com

After the Agency has received all Responses to this RFI, the Agency, in its sole discretion, shall determine if a meeting with Respondents is necessary to clarify the information received. In the event that the Agency decides to hold a meeting, the Respondent (s) will be notified via email.

V. COSTS

Respondents are responsible for all costs associated with preparing a Response to this RFI. The State of Florida, Agency for Health Care Administration, will not be responsible for any Respondent costs associated with preparing a Response to this RFI.

VI. QUESTIONS

Questions concerning this RFI shall be submitted in writing via email to solicitation.questions@ahca.myflorida.com no later than 2:00 PM, EST, September 2, 2022. The Agency will reply to all questions no later than 2:00 PM EST, September 12, 2022.

VII. AGENCY FOR HEALTH CARE ADMINISTRATION WEBSITE

Additional information about the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration can be found on the Agency’s website at: http://ahca.myflorida.com/