ESBD_509173_1777589798419_717-26-747, Addendum 1, Q & A.pdf

Procurement Services - Purchasing

Addendum 1

Questions & Answers

RFP # 717-26-747

AI-Powered Clinical Learning & Remediation Platform

Question 1: Will Texas Southern University provide existing course content, question banks, and clinical case materials (including board-style practice questions and simulated and simulated patient scenarios) for ingestion and activation within the platform? Or does TSU expect the vendor to supply pharmacy-specific and health professions content libraries as a pre-built component of the proposed solution?

Answer 1: Both. TSU will provide curriculum specific content and case materials to supplement the vendor provided pharmacy and health science content libraries to support national benchmarking, practice readiness and board exam prep.

Question 2: A question about a specification on p. 8 of this RFP. It is the fourth from the top:

"Additionally, the system must support the development of clinical reasoning skills through simulated and

AI patient interactions or case-based learning modules." What format is required for "simulated and AI patient interactions"? Is a video simulation of a conversation with a patient required, or is voice-to-voice with the AI enough?

Answer 2: Voice-to-voice is sufficient, though video based or recording capabilities would be a bonus, Question 3: Is there any incumbent for this opportunity?

Answer 3: No there is no incumbent.

Question 4: If there is an incumbent then are they bidding for this opportunity?

Answer 4: N/A

Question 5: What is the allocated budget for this RFP?

Answer 5: Approximately $40K.

Question 6: Are you flexible in minimum requirements?

Answer 6: No. The requested features allow for a robust academic support and remediation platform to meet the needs of our students.

Question 7: What is the project schedule?

Answer 7: We would like to implement Fall 2026.

Question 8: What are the current challenges?

Answer 8: No challenges have been currently identified.

Question 9: Is the University expecting a fully cloud-hosted (SaaS) solution, or should the platform support on-premise or hybrid deployment?

Answer 9: Fully cloud-hosted.

Question 10: Are there any preferred cloud providers (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud) or existing institutional hosting constraints?

Answer 10: No preferred providers.

Question 11: What are the expected number of concurrent users (students, faculty) at peak usage?

Answer 11: Approximately 300 users.

Question 12: Can the University clarify the expected depth of AI tutor functionality (basic Q&A vs.

advanced clinical reasoning guidance)?

Answer 12: AI tutor will help guide student reasoning to work through an answer and also be able to provide advanced clinical information and guidance with citations from clinical guidelines and peer reviewed journals.

Question 13: What level of explainability and transparency is required for AI-generated feedback?

Answer 13: AI tutor would ideally cite and link to resources used.

Question 14: Does the University expect interactive AI patient simulations (real-time conversations) or predefined case-based scenarios?

Answer 14: The University would like pre-defined case-based scenarios that are adaptive to the student input.

Question 15: Should simulations include voice-based interaction, or will text-based interaction suffice?

Answer 15: Both. We want students to be able to provide patient counseling, presentation and defense of treatment plans as well as the ability to write clinical case notes and detailed treatment plans.

Question 16: Are there any existing clinical case libraries that should be integrated or reused?

Answer 16: The college has some existing cases but the vendors AI capabilities will allow us to build and refine cases to align with the curriculum and student learning opportunities.

Question 17: Will the University provide existing curriculum content, question banks, and clinical cases, or is the vendor expected to generate all content?

Answer 17: TSU will provide curriculum specific content and case materials to supplement the vendor provided pharmacy and health science content libraries to support national benchmarking, practice readiness and board exam prep.

Question 18: Does the University require integration with an existing Learning Management System

(LMS)?

Answer 18: Potentially. It would be dependent upon how the vendor enrolls students, connects them to relevant courses, and returns grades.

Question 19: Are there any student information systems (SIS) or identity systems that must be integrated?

Answer 19: Potentially. It would be dependent upon how the vendor enrolls students, connects them to relevant courses, and returns grades.

Question 20: What are the expected user roles (students, faculty, admins, program coordinators)?

Answer 20: Administrators, clinical coordinators, faculty, students, and academic support staff.

Question 21: Should the platform support role-based dashboards and permissions?

Answer 21: Yes, at minimum the faculty should be able to control and provide varying levels of access to students.

Question 22: Will faculty require the ability to customize or create learning modules and assessments?

Answer 22: Yes, faculty should have the ability to customize and create learning modules, assessments, OSCEs and questions banks for students.

Question 23: What level of analytics and reporting is required for:

1. Students (self-performance)?

2. Faculty (class-level insights)?

3. Administration (program-level outcomes)?

Answer 23: All of the above. Students should be able to have performance reports to track their own progress on self-guided learning as well as faculty assigned content and assessments. Faculty should be able to see individual student and aggregated course, cohort, and content specific data. Administration should be able to see all the previously reference insights for the program level tracking.

Question 24: Are there specific KPIs or success metrics the University wants to track (e.g., exam readiness, remediation improvement)?

Answer 24: Specific KPIs include exam readiness, readiness to progress between semesters and academic years, remediation progress, end of the year summative performance, clinical skill, and board exam preparation.

Question 25: Are there specific data privacy requirements (e.g., HIPAA, FERPA) that must be adhered to?

Answer 25: Student performance data would need to be protected.

Question 26: What level of faculty training is expected (live sessions, recorded modules, documentation)?

Answer 26: At minimum virtual training, recorded modules and documentation with in person training preferred.

Question 27: What is the expected timeline for onboarding and go-live?

Answer 27: Initial onboarding of power users would take place Summer 2026 with go-live for high-risk courses and at-risk students planned for Fall 2026.

Question 28: What are the required support SLAs (response time, resolution time)?

Answer 28: We would ideally like to have support response time with the same business day if before

2pm and resolution within 24 hours.

Question 29: Is the University expecting a fully customized solution, or a configurable off-the-shelf platform?

Answer 29: We are expected a generic platform with off-the shelf pharmacy and health science content and features that can be further customized and configured for TSU by power users.

Question 30: Is there a target go-live date?

Answer 30: First day of class Fall 2026.

Question 31: Should the implementation be phased out or full deployment at once?

Answer 31: Varying cohorts will be using different features of the platform so a full deployment at once is ideal.

Question 32: Are pilot programs expected before full launch?

Answer 32: If possible, we would want to pilot in July during Summer Academy for our incoming cohort and during Summer Rotations for our graduating student cohort.

Question 33: What is the evaluation criteria?

Answer 33: As with all ITBs, we begin evaluating the cheapest offer. If we find that offer acceptable and/or if we feel that the proposed offer meets our needs, then no further evaluations take place.

Question 34: If we provide AI Chatbot is that acceptable

Answer 34: AI Chatbot for???? For tutoring, yes as long as we can program it and provide content it and add guardrails to where it sources responses to students. For support, as long as it can transfer to human support when necessary.

Question 35: Total number of anticipated users — including students, faculty, and administrative staff who will access the platform?

Answer 35: Approximately 300 students and 30 staff/faculty/admin.

Question 36: Which specific health sciences programs are in scope (e.g., Pharmacy, Nursing, Allied

Health, Pre-Med)?

Answer 36: The initial rollout is for Pharmacy but could grow to include our undergraduate clinical health sciences: Biomedical Science, Clinical Labs, Respiratory Therapy and Nutritional Science.

Question 37: Approximate student enrollment across the programs to be served?

Answer 37: To start, 300 for pharmacy. Down the line Biomedical would be another 300 and the undergraduate clinical health sciences another 100 students.

Question 38: Are there anticipated growth projections for user volume over the 3-year contract period that vendors should account for in their pricing?

Answer 38: Yes, the potential addition of the programs listed above.

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