AHCA RFI 004-2324 E-Discovery Services.pdf

STATE OF FLORIDA

AGENCY FOR HEALTH CARE ADMINISTRATION

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

AHCA RFI 004-23/24, Page 1 of 8

E-Discovery Services

RFI RELEASE DATE: October 6, 2023

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. GENERAL INFORMATION

II. GOALS

III. STATEMENT OF NEED

IV. RFI RESPONSE INSTRUCTIONS

V. PUBLIC RECORDS EXEMPTIONS, TRADE SECRET OR PROPRIETARY

INFORMATION

VI. RESPONSE SUBMISSION

VII. COSTS

VIII. QUESTIONS

IX. AGENCY FOR HEALTH CARE ADMINISTRATION WEBSITE

REMAINDER OF PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK

AHCA RFI 004-23/24, Page 2 of 8

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 (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

Currently the Agency is experiencing end-of-life system issues with its current Clearwell e-discovery system, which is hosted locally. The Agency has experienced system failures and software and infrastructure disruptions and outages, which are increasing with the system’s age. The Clearwell e-discovery system is used for Agency public records searches and legal discovery services.

C. Purpose

After research, the Agency believes eDiscovery (also called e-discovery, ediscovery, or e-Discovery) is the electronic version of the discovery process for litigation and for public records searches. The solution would apply the same rules that govern general discovery requests, except that all the information is digital and discoverable. Discovery itself requires an exchange of information that is strictly relevant to the electronic document search needed.

This RFI seeks to obtain industry solution information on outsourced services that support Electronically Stored Information (ESI) discovery and administer and orchestrate the e-discovery process. The Agency’s Infrastructure and Operations (I&O) IT Managers must partner with legal and compliance teams to develop strategies to select products and services that best align with their e-discovery and platform architecture, and statutory compliance requirements.

AHCA RFI 004-23/24, Page 3 of 8

II. GOALS

The Agency is interested in partnering with a vendor or vendors to help accomplish its goal to increase process efficiencies and turn-around times for legal discovery needs and public records compliance for the state of Florida. The vendors, or E-Discovery Service providers, will establish and operate a system with services to accomplish the following processing requirements for the Agency’s E-Discovery needs:

A. IDENTIFY: Locate, inventory and scope potential sources of ESI.

B. PRESERVE: Ensure that ESI is protected against inappropriate change or deletion (i.e., Legal Holds).

C. COLLECT: Gather data for use in the processing and review states of E-discovery.

D. PROCESS: Prepare data performing processes, such as reduce e-discovery volume

(e.g., deduplication), OCR or convert it for review.

E. REVIEW: Identify items that are responsive to requests and to segregate privileged ones.

F. ANALYZE: Utilized throughout e-discovery process to evaluate ESI for additional insights, including patterns, visualization and threading.

G. PRODUCE: Package ESI in applicable forms, and produce package ESI in applicable forms, formats, and delivery options to requesting parties, such as opposing counsel.

H. PRESENTATION: The Agency believes the presentation of ESI may occur during hearings, trials, depositions, and any other legal or compliance investigatory settings.

The Agency believes the presentation is especially effective when presented in native and as near-native forms as possible.

I. HOSTING TECHNOLOGIES: Delivery of third-party e-discovery platform with cloud-compliant hosting; including only forty-eight contiguous U.S. state location of data center, to comply with Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FEDRAMP) standards.

III. STATEMENT OF NEED

To accomplish the above goals, the Agency seeks a FEDRAMP 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 for E-Discovery for Agency public records and legal discovery purposes:

A. Data Pull Estimates before actual processing: The Agency has a costing process to offer individuals requesting public records before they are conducted. Staff cost estimates are given before actual pulls of data, redaction, etc.

B. Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act & (HIPAA), Personal Health

AHCA RFI 004-23/24, Page 4 of 8

Information (PHI) and IT Security Compliance: All agreements between the Agency and vendor partner will need to have HIPAA and PHI compliance standards.

C. Outsourced Services: The process will require Agency staff to review all vendor discovered data for redaction needs. The Agency is interested in complete outsourcing of the services if the solution complies with Federal and State laws.

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

E. Interoperability: Ability to serve the Agency with required system use, such as up-to-date browser versions, and desktop security environment.

F. Data Analytics: Enable Authorized User(s) to generate operational data and analytics from the vendor-provided services and solution.

IV. 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(es); Web Site address, if applicable; and contact information, including representative name and alternate, with telephone number(s) and e-mail address(es).

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.

• Please provide a description of the Respondent’s business and its experience as it relates to the services outlined in this RFI.

• Please provide 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.

C. 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 any work-at-home employees.

• Current number of states worked-in.

• Your Company’s experience working with state agencies, including aspects of the state contract that allow for successful project implementation and outcomes.

AHCA RFI 004-23/24, Page 5 of 8

D. Please provide a sample list of any relevant federal or state contracts the Agency should expect a vendor to have held in the past five years, including any contracts with the General Services Administration (GSA).

• Please include a brief description of the contract, the contract’s 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 ESI space, such as any recognitions or awards.

E. Legal Compliance: Please describe how the solution operates in a public sector environment:

• Audit requirements.

• How does the system ensure HIPAA compliance, including privacy and confidential data protections?

• Data-Hosting integrity.

• The case approach of your system.

• System workflow description.

• Case intake to production, to closure process explanation or best practices.

F. Business Requirements: In Florida, the Courts, state and federal legislatures, and government regulators have developed rules concerning how organizations identify ESI, particularly for purposes of civil and criminal proceedings, investigations, and audits. Please describe how your solution would address the following:

• The Agency’s compliance with the Florida Sunshine Laws for public records and transparency has also led to voluminous eDiscovery requests.

Reference: Section 812.081, Florida Statutes.

• Preserving eDiscovery is also a large business requirement. Our Agency has a duty to take reasonable steps to identify and preserve relevant ESI when an investigation or litigation is reasonably anticipated or pending.

• Legal Hold - As soon as litigation starts, all ESI and other evidence relevant to a case must be held and preserved in a separate database to keep its most original form for the Agency to comply with statutory duties.

• Record of Chain-of-Custody is imperative to the success of the Agency’s ESI policy and procedures. Despite its digital format, ESI, just like its hardcopy predecessors, is subject to mishandling and human error. Files can be altered, corrupted, lost, written over, or accidentally deleted, even when the data and documents have already been legally preserved. This could be the cause for sanctions or other legal remedies in response to the destruction of potentially significant evidence.

AHCA RFI 004-23/24, Page 6 of 8

• The Agency needs best practices consultation in addressing eDiscovery management of information and records. To do that effectively requires greater control over the handling of potential eDiscovery requests by the Agency.

G. Technical Requirements: Describe the technical capabilities that are unique to your products and how they provide excellent service in the ESI space.

• Please explain how your technology integrates with major Document Management systems. The Agency’s uses Laserfiche and OnBase document management platforms. Please list all integration standards your products meet.

• Please 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 ESI information technologies and how you update your system to meet the changing needs of your clients.

• Please describe system key technical requirements, for example:

o Subject Rights Request Automation o Legal Hold Notification and Automation o IT Environment Data Map o Custodian-led identification and preservation o File type filtering o Data deduplication o Image/video analysis o Early case assessment before collection o Data Visualization o Categorization, classification, clustering o Certification o Agent-based data collection o Interoperability with Legal Hold

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

• Please provide information on any privacy and security credentials your organization benefits from in the IT security realm.

• Describe what privacy and security tools and standards you provide to https://info.aiim.org/aiim-blog/newaiimo/2009/08/31/8-things-you-need-to-know-about-preservation-of-edocuments-for-litigation-and-regulatory-investigati?hsLang=en

AHCA RFI 004-23/24, Page 7 of 8 protect health data.

• Describe your in-house expertise in handling 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.

I. Pricing Information: Provide general cost information for your proposed solution, including a description of your company’s pricing model(s) and factors that may impact how your solution is priced.

V. 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.

VI. 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), November 17, 2023. Responses shall be e-mailed to solicitation.questions@ahca.myflorida.com.

mailto:solicitation.questions@ahca.myflorida.com

AHCA RFI 004-23/24, Page 8 of 8

Responses shall be addressed to:

Weston McKain 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.

VII. 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.

VIII. 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, October 20, 2023. The anticipated date for the Agency to reply to all questions is November 3, 2023.

IX. 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/.

REMAINDER OF PAGE INTENTILNALLY LEFT BLANK

mailto:Solicitation.questions@ahca.myflorida.com mailto:solicitation.questions@ahca.myflorida.com http://ahca.myflorida.com/