IFB 26-040 - Q&A Document_8.21.26.pdf

KATHY HOCHUL

Governor

ANN MARIE T. SULLIVAN, M.D.

Commissioner

44 Holland Avenue, Albany NY 12229 | omh.ny.gov

IFB 26-040

Interoperability

Questions and Answers

# Section Question Answer

1 Attachment D

Attachment D includes an “Implementation Costs” line marked “if not previously built.” Please clarify whether this line should be completed only by bidders proposing a new or replacement platform.

Should a bidder proposing continuation of the existing platform enter zero, “included,” or another amount?

This line should be completed by all bidders who are proposing a new/replacement platform. A continuation of the current platform will be zero.

2 Attachment D

Attachment D requests Year 1, Year 2, and Year 3 interoperability costs but does not identify an hourly estimate or unit quantity for those lines. Please confirm whether bidders should enter fixed annual license and platform costs for each year and whether these amounts must include all hosting, maintenance, software updates, hot fixes, LMS access, workshops, and other required services.

Bidders should enter a fixed annual license with all services included.

3 Attachment D

Please clarify the distinction between Standard Support and Premium Support, including:

a. Services included in each support level;

b. Required response and resolution times;

c. Hours of coverage;

d. Whether both levels must be priced;

e. Whether the stated 225 and 150 hours are estimates or guaranteed quantities.

Services Included in each support level:

Standard support provides regular business-hour assistance, ticket handling, and updates for non-critical deployments.

Premium support scales up to 24/7 mission-critical coverage, rapid response SLAs for severe incidents, and dedicated technical problem-solving for enterprise health data environments.

Whether both levels must be priced: Yes

Whether the stated 225 and 150 hours are estimates or guaranteed quantities: This hour is the estimated quantity for professional support hours outside the standard and premium support.

4 Attachment D

Please confirm whether AWS hosting and infrastructure expenses will be paid directly by OMH or must be included in the bidder’s fixed annual interoperability costs. If infrastructure costs must be included, please provide sufficient usage, storage, compute, database, networking, backup, disaster-recovery, and data-transfer information for comparable pricing.

AWS hosting will be paid by OMH.

5 Attachment D

Attachment D states that no escalation is permitted and all pricing is fixed for the contract term. If actual data volumes, API transactions, facilities, interfaces or storage requirements materially exceed the volumes identified in the IFB or OMH's responses to Bidder questions, how will such increased scope be addressed?

The price will be fixed based on the bids received. The price should include current system implementation, maintenance of the current system, and multiple levels of support. We don’t expect material changes and any that materialize will be negotiated in good faith and need OSC approval.

6 Attachment D

Estimating the cost to deliver the fully functional solution OMH requires means a vendor must make assumptions about data volumes, ingestion sources, data quality, and other factors. If those assumptions are incorrect, the cost and schedule may change. The IFB does not seem to provide a mechanism to allow potential bidders to provide assumptions that form the basis of their price proposal. Will OMH allow vendors to provide a solution narrative that includes assumptions and risks?

Bidders must provide their pricing using Attachment D based on the answers to the questions in this document. This includes assumptions and risks.

7 Attachment D

Attachment D (Bid Quote Sheet) provides one line-item per year for “Interoperability Costs”. Our solution includes software components as well as professional services. Would you like to see those costs separated or bundled as a solution cost?

Bundle the costs within the Interoperability costs line item. Please, feel free to submit an extra page or 2 to explain your cost proposal, but do not change the cost proposal document at all.

8 Attachment D

How should a vendor price a solution or component where the cost is tied to usage, such as number of messages or data under management?

This should be included in the yearly licensing fee section of Attachment D.

Feel free to submit an extra page or 2 to explain your cost proposal but do not change the cost proposal document at all.

9 Attachment D

Attachment D assumes only 75 hours of “Standard Support Costs” per year and 50 hours of “Premium Support Costs”. Can OMH explain the rationale behind those estimates?

Will OMH contract for additional services if needed?

Yes, we can procure those extra services if needed. These initial estimates are based on current system and support we procured from previous vendor.

10 Attachment D

Can OMH share a budget or expected cost for this procurement?

That will provide OMH with proposals that offer a vendor’s best solution for OMH’s planned budget, rather than significantly under- or over-estimating the solution.

The budget will be determined by the bids received.

11 Attachment D

Attachment D (Bid Quote Sheet) requires bidders to attest that they will inform the OMH of any individuals who will provide any service under the resulting contract who has not been off the New York State payroll for a minimum of two years from the start date of the resulting contract.

Please define “provide any service.”

“Any service” refers to any work that is performed by an individual for the resulting contract. For our purposes, NYS employees are considered “public officers” and OMH needs to get clearance from our council to employ such a person within 2 years of NYS employment.

12 Attachment D

The IFB states that Bidders must fill out the Implementation line on Attachment D if they do not currently have implementation readiness at the scale described. If a Bidder’s off-the-shelf product natively satisfies all technical requirements at the required scale out-of-the-box, should the Implementation Cost line item be left blank or populated as $0.00?

Yes.

Attachment K

Regarding Attachment K (EEO Employment Opportunity Staffing Plan), in the U.S it is voluntary for employees to self-report their race/ethnicity, disabled status, and veteran status. Please confirm it is acceptable for bidders to only provide workforce by gender.

If race/ethnicity has not been provided, it is acceptable to only report work force by gender.

14 Bid Submission

The Bid Submission Checklist instructs bidders to submit a completed and signed Attachment A- 3 and Attachment N. However, Attachment A-3 indicates that completing Attachment N is only required if NYS businesses are to be used in the performance of this contract. The instructions in the Bid Submission Checklist and on Attachment A-3 seem to be contradictory about whether submission of Attachment N is required; please clarify.

If no NYS businesses are being used for this contract, Attachments A-3 and N can still be filled out and signed. Answering “No” on all questions on Attachment N is still acceptable.

15 Bid Submission

The Bid Submission Checklist directs bidders to include a “signed original” of Attachments J-1: Offeror’s Affirmation of Understanding and J-2:

OMH Offeror Disclosure of Prior Non- Responsibility Determinations. Given that bidders are submitting electronic bids per Section 9 (Response Date), please clarify the requirement for a signed original copy of Attachments J-1 and J-2.

The expectation is to fill out J1 and J2, sign it by hand, scan it to .pdf, and submit it with the bid.

16 Bid Submission

Please clarify if electronic notarization is acceptable for Form

ST-220-CA.

Electronic notarization is not acceptable for Form ST-220-CA.

17 Bid Submission

The Bid Submission Checklist directs bidders to sign/notarize Attachment E, but Attachment E does not have a

Anywhere on the page for the notarization is acceptable.

designated place for notarization.

Please clarify this requirement.

18 Bid Submission bidders to include a “signed original” of Attachment D: Bid Quote Sheet.

Given that bidders are submitting electronic bids per Section 9 (Response Date), please clarify the requirement for a signed original copy of Attachment C.

The expectation is to fill out Attachment D, sign it by hand, scan it to .pdf, and submit it with the bid.

19 Bid Submission bidders to include a “completed hard copy” of Attachment C: Solicitation Cover Sheet. Given that bidders are submitting electronic bids per Section 9 (Response Date), please clarify the requirement for a signed hard copy of Attachment C.

A signed hard copy means a hand-signed and scanned .pdf of the sheet.

20 Other

Will OMH provide prospective bidders with additional technical documentation, such as:

• Current architecture and network diagrams

• Data volumes and resource counts

• Current implementation guides and custom profiles

• Interface and integration inventory

• Existing AWS architecture and sizing

• Security and identity architecture

• Performance benchmarks

• Data-ingestion pipelines

• Migration and cutover requirements

• Service-level and incident history

If these materials require a nondisclosure agreement, please provide the applicable process.

Upon start of the engagement post selection process, OMH can supply documents of this nature.

Yes, upon selection, the contractor would be required to sign a CNDA.

21 Other

Will the selected contractor be required to execute a HIPAA Business Associate Agreement or another data-use, confidentiality, or

Yes, the selected Vendor will execute a Business Associate Agreement. This is a part of the sample contract as Appendix F.

security agreement? If so, please provide the applicable form or requirements.

22 Other

Please confirm whether subcontractors, platform licensors, cloud specialists, and implementation partners are permitted and whether they must be identified in the original bid. Please also clarify which mandatory forms, references, insurance documentation, and responsibility disclosures must be submitted for proposed subcontractors.

Any subcontractors are permitted. They will need to be disclosed on Attachment H

- Consultant Disclosure Form A. They will also need to supply a Vendor ID and fill out and certify the Vendor Responsibility Questionnaire prior to proposal submission.

23 Other

Please confirm whether proof of workers’ compensation, disability benefits, commercial liability, technology errors-and-omissions, cyber liability, and other required insurance must accompany the bid or will be required only from the selected bidder before contract execution.

These documents will be required only from the selected bidder before contract execution, but we reserve the right to request this information as soon as bids are opened as delays in this process can affect services and therefore affect a bidder’s responsiveness.

24 Other

Will OMH allow the use of offshore resources that will not have access to client data?

No. (According to ITS/OMH security and privacy policy)

25 Other

Who operates the existing system– the State or a vendor? Who will operate the new system once in production?

New York State’s resources operate and administer the current interoperability system. If a new interoperability platform is proposed by a bidder, the contract bidder is responsible for co-creating, engineering, customizing, and implementing a replacement solution with continuous technical support and turned over for operations and administration by New York State staff.

26 Other

Will OMH extend the submission deadline by one week? Requiring vendors to submit a responsive and responsible bid one week after receiving the answers to vendor questions may lead to suboptimal bids for OMH.

As this has been requested by several prospective bidders, there will be a posted Addendum that will extend the submission by a week. This Addendum will be posted on the NYS Contract Reporter.

27 Other

Does OMH require a single, turnkey Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) software package that natively provides every required feature out-of-the-box, or will OMH accept a modular architecture where a core COTS/SaaS interoperability platform is supplemented by custom-engineered auxiliary databases (e.g., the RDBMS analytical datastore, audit log stores, and custom admin portals) built by the System Integrator to fulfill the total scope?

OMH's requirement is best met by a modular architecture: Smile CDR currently serves as the COTS/SaaS interoperability core (FHIR conformance, SMART on FHIR, CDS Hooks, consent enforcement) supplemented by custom-engineered auxiliary components (analytical RDBMS, audit stores, omh-match, consent-check, complex needs status, CODAP flow etc.)

built for OMH's workflows. OMH cannot identify any commercial interoperability platform that provides these auxiliary components natively. A "single turnkey" requirement would either be unmet by any vendor or would silently reintroduce the same custom work under less transparent terms.

28 Other

To help accurately size platform throughput and transaction tiers, what is the estimated average daily and peak hourly transaction count (e.g., individual message, resource, or record transactions) for ongoing inbound data feeds across C-CDA, HL7 v2, NDJSON, and CSV formats?

Additionally, what is the average daily transaction volume for outbound data pushes (e.g., real-time FHIR Observation writes/notifications to hospital EMRs)?

This is the peak rate reported by OMH and the agency expects continued growth.

17,000 per day currently is the average daily transaction volume.

29 Other

What is OMH’s target timeline/deadline for full production cutover post-award, and will a mandatory parallel-run period be required during the transition?

There are 3 major data exchange partners currently deployed on the Production platform. If an alternate interoperability platform is substituted, these data exchange partners will migrate to the new solution as soon as possible while maintaining the same level of service.

Yes, a parallel run period is expected if migrating to an alternate platform to ensure continuity of data exchange quality.

30 Other

What is the budget range for the requested services?

The budget is determined by the bids received.

Other

Is Smile Digital Health the only vendor providing all these services today or are other tools also part of the current solution.

SMILE-CDR is the sole vendor providing professional services for this platform hosted by New York State.

32 Section 1

The specifications identify capabilities and feature names that appear closely associated with the existing interoperability platform, including EasyShare SMART Health Links, Live Bundle, FHIR-native MDM, integrated terminology services, LMS access, and specific support capabilities. Please confirm whether these terms describe required functional outcomes and whether OMH will accept technically equivalent products and services from other platform providers.

Yes, required functional outcomes and OMH could accept technically equivalent products and services.

33 Section 1

Does OMH anticipate continuing the existing HAPI FHIR-based platform and associated products, or is OMH considering a complete replacement platform? If both approaches are permissible, please confirm that bidders may propose either:

a. Licensing and support for the current platform; or

b. A functionally equivalent replacement platform, including implementation and migration.

The approach is based on project cost and expertise of each bidder. If a bidder can provide licensing and support for the current interoperability platform at lower cost than a platform replacement, the total cost for this solution should be submitted.

If however, an equivalent interoperability platform can replace the existing one at lesser cost including design, implementation, migration, training, and support, then that solution should be submitted.

34 Section 1

Please identify the software licenses, subscriptions, source-code rights, configurations, custom implementation guides, data mappings, interfaces, documentation, and deployment artifacts currently owned or licensed by OMH. Please also clarify which existing assets will be made available to the selected contractor.

Not applicable at this time. OMH would like to get this information from vendors’ past experience working with interoperability projects. Evaluations will be provided on what is provided by each vendor.

35 Section 1

Must a bidder be the software manufacturer, the current platform provider, or an authorized reseller or implementation partner of the proposed interoperability platform? If

If a bidder is a software manufacturer, they must include all costs to purchase, design, implement, migrate, train, and support the proposed solution. If a bidder does not manufacture software for the authorization is required, please identify the documentation that must accompany the bid.

proposed solution, they are to identify the manufacturer and present evidence in bid showing the contract, attestation, agreement, license, authorization, credential, or other formal business agreement that documents a reseller’s partnership with the software manufacturer in the bid.

36 Section 1

The anticipated contract start date is September 15, 2026, shortly after the stated August 28 bid deadline. If a new or replacement platform is selected, please provide the anticipated transition period, required production date, parallel-operation expectations, testing period, data-migration schedule, and incumbent-transition support.

In cases where a new interoperability solution or replacement platform is offered, the transition period, production date of the new platform, parallel-operations, testing, data migration, and incumbent transition support periods should be reasonable and analogous to previous projects accomplished by the bidder. Devise a project schedule within the date parameters specified for this project. Bidders should anchor their estimates with lessons learned and evidence from previous conversion project plans executed.

37 Section 1

Please identify the mandatory security, privacy, healthcare, and cloud certifications or attestations applicable to the contractor and proposed platform, including any requirements concerning HIPAA, HITRUST, SOC 2, FedRAMP, NIST, NYS Information Technology Standards, penetration testing, or independent security assessments.

Please refer to https://its.ny.gov/cybersecurity

38 Section 1

Will this project be implemented in phases?

The more definition and organization of the work supplied in the project plan, the more convincing the bid.

39 Section 1

What is your expectation of project duration?

The anticipated project start date is September 15, 2026. The anticipated project end date is expected to be close to September 14, 2029. The bidder should define milestones, phases / sprints / in a schedule that supports successful project execution between these two dates of the contract engagement. Bidders should keep in mind project closure, transition to operations, and administrative closure activities at the end of the engagement.

40 Section 1

Does OMH currently have a PSYCKES FHIR Implementation Guide, profiles, extensions, value sets, mappings, test cases, or related artifacts that will be made available to the selected Bidder, or is the successful Bidder expected to develop these artifacts from the beginning?

OMH can share the current PSYCKES FHIR Implementation guide.

41 Section 1

Please provide the approximate current number of FHIR resources, broken down by major resource type if available, current database/storage footprint, and expected annual growth.

FHIR Resources – Patient, Organization, Practitioner, Practitioner Role, Observation, Flag, Condition, Procedure, @summary

Database/Storage Footprint – 1TB, Expected growth of 10% annual growth

42 Section 1

Please provide average and peak FHIR API transaction volumes, including read, search, create/update and other relevant transaction types, along with current and anticipated concurrent-user or concurrent-connection volumes.

Transaction values:

Read/Search: Average 17000/Day Peak 21000/Day Create/update: peak 120/Sec Concurrent users: 30 Anticipated users: 80-90

43 Section 1

For non-FHIR ingestion (HL7 v2, C- CDA, CSV), are these data feeds delivered via direct API/SFTP endpoints, or will site-by-site VPN tunnels be required for external partner facilities?

Side-by-side VPN is not required.

44 Section 1

How many active external provider feeds are currently pushing data into the platform, and what is the expected annual growth in partner onboarding over the 3-year term?

Currently, there are 3 external data partners supplying data to NYS OMH.

They include:

1 care management provider serving homeless clients living with mental illness 1 major metropolitan hospital network 1 major New York State regional qualified entity serving as a clearinghouse of EMR data

A rapid increase of numerous external data partners is expected to provide and receive data using the interoperable platform now in Production. A bidder should project a range of data exchange partners that can be accommodated in the Production platform’s growth plan.

45 Section 1

With respect to P2P Exchange, does OMH intend to leverage the HL7 Da Vinci Payer Data Exchange (PDex) Implementation Guide exclusively for Payer-to-Payer (P2P) exchange, and will member consent capture occur upstream in PSYCKES or within the interoperability platform's consent engine?

OMH currently does not have this requirement.

46 Section 1

With respect to the Requirement 1.2 (III) (Patient Matching), does OMH already possess an existing Master Person Index (MPI) with pre-matched Enterprise Person Identifiers (EPIs), or is the vendor expected to run deterministic/probabilistic matching algorithms on the 20+ million patient dataset from scratch?

Yes, we do have MDM in-house, but NYS OMH would like to leverage the native solution, which can match patients on the fly.

47 Section 1

Please provide additional functional and technical detail regarding the “Live Bundle” requirement, including expected workflow, interfaces, data elements, and performance requirements.

Please refer to:

https://www.hl7.org/fhir/bundle.html

48 Section 1

Is OMH requiring general conformance with the SMART Health Links specification, or compatibility with a specific EasyShare product, implementation, or existing OMH workflow?

No, OMH is not implementing SMART Health Links in its current configuration.

This may be a future enhancement.

49 Section 10

Section 10 (Determination/Method of Award) states that the minimum mandatory requirements are “defined in Section 9 below.” Is this meant to refer to Section 11 (Mandatory Bid Submission Requirements)?

50 Section 11

Section 11.C.2 requires proof that the bidder has been in business performing the required type of service for at least three years.

Please clarify the specific services that must have been performed during that period. Does this mean operation and support of an enterprise healthcare-interoperability platform, or may the requirement be satisfied through documented experience in software development, healthcare data integration, cloud engineering, HL7/FHIR implementation, or comparable technology services?

The primary intent of a "years in business" requirement is risk mitigation. Please explain services your company has offered that relate to this project.

51 Section 11

May the three-year experience requirement be satisfied through the combined relevant experience of the bidder, proposed subcontractors, platform licensors, implementation partners, and key personnel? If not, please confirm that the bidder’s legal entity must independently demonstrate at least three years of directly comparable healthcare-interoperability platform experience.

The bidder’s legal entity must independently demonstrate the three-year experience requirement.

52 Section 11

Must the three business references required by Attachment F relate specifically to enterprise HL7 FHIR platform delivery and support, or will OMH accept references involving comparable healthcare data integration, cloud architecture, software implementation, or large-scale information-technology services? May references for major projects performed by proposed key personnel or subcontractors be included?

As this project specifically necessitates expertise in HL7 standards such as FHIR to support interoperability, business references should relate to this topic. If a business reference does not relate to FHIR, but to another interoperability standard, please note the standard. If the business reference is connected to a topic relevant to HL7 interoperability, please note the topic of interoperability. Business references should be from former and current clients/customers of the vendor.

Please do not submit business references currently or formerly employed by the bidding vendor. Do not submit employees or subcontractors formerly or currently compensated by the project bidder.

53 Section 11

Section 11.C.24 instructs bidders to submit proof of coverage for New York State Workers’ Compensation & Disability Benefits Insurance as explained in Section 10 of the IFB.

Please confirm this is meant to refer to Section 12.

Confirmed.

54 Section 11

Section 11.C.23 directs bidders to, “if required,” provide verification of being registered to conduct business in New York State. Where in the IFB does it state whether or not bidders are required to provide such documentation with their bids?

It is not required to provide this with your bid, but you would have to if tentatively selected for the award in order to enter into a contract with OMH.

55 Section 11

Section 11.C.22 directs bidders to provide proof of insurance and licensing as stated in the OMH contract boilerplate. Section 13 (Additional Insurance Requirement) states that bidders should provide documentation before commencing work under the contract. Please clarify what is required to be submitted with the bid v. what is required only from the awardee.

We will consider your bid with a cover letter and signed acceptable Bid Quote Sheet submitted by the due date. We would require the remainder of the documents from awardee.

56 Section 11

Section 11.C.13 instructs bidders to complete Attachment L - MWBE Utilization Plan if MWBE goals are established in Attachment A. Goals of 0% are specified in Attachment A;

please confirm this means bidders do not need to complete Attachment L or clarify the requirement. (Please note that in Attachment A, the submission of an MWBE Utilization Plan is also noted as being required with bids.)

Section 11.C.13 instructs bidders to complete Attachment L if M/WBE goals have been established. There are no goals established, therefore it is not a required for this IFB.

57 Section 11

Please clarify the applicability of Attachment H - Consultant Disclosure

For NYS contracting purposes “consultants” include any labor expenses for analysis, evaluation, research, training, Form A if bidders are not providing “consultant” services.

data processing, computer programming, engineering, environmental, health, mental health services, accounting, auditing, paralegal, legal, or similar services. For this contract we would work with you to complete this form for your tech support staff.

58 Section 11

Section 11.C.9 instructs bidders to complete Attachment H - Consultant Disclosure Form A “as explained in Section 15 below.” Section 15 (Reserved Rights) does not reference Attachment H; please clarify the instruction in 11.C.9.

Apologies, the section where Consultant Disclosure is further explained is Section 16, not 15.

59 Section 11

Section 11.C.6 instructs bidders to include any NY State Agencies, if applicable, as part of Attachment F - Business References. Does this mean that the incumbent vendor should include the NYS OMH as a reference, or does “NY State Agencies” refer to all state agencies other than the NYS OMH?

NYS Agencies refers to any non-OMH agencies.

60 Section 11

Section 11.C instructs bidders to place its completed Bid Submission Checklist first in the bid package, and Section 11.C.1 instructs bidders to use Attachment C - Solicitation Cover Sheet as the first page/cover sheet.

Please clarify if the Bid Submission Checklist or Attachment C should appear as the first document in the bid package.

Please include the Bid Submission Checklist first, then the Cover Sheet.

61 Section 14

Section 14 (Background Checks and Requirements for Contractor providing services in OMH-operated Facilities) refers to an Appendix D that is not included in the IFB. Does the omission of Appendix D mean that the requirements in Section 14

Appendix D refers to the Scope of Work (Sections 1-4) of the IFB. Appendix D is what the Scope of Work is called in the sample contract provided with the IFB.

Section 14 does apply to this IFB.

do not apply to this IFB and therefore bidders can disregard this Section? If not, please clarify.

62 Section 16

Section 16 (Consultant Disclosure Legislation) refers to a Consulting Form A that is not included in the IFB. Does the omission of Consulting Form A mean that the requirements in Section 16 do not apply to this IFB and therefore bidders can disregard this Section? If not, please clarify.

Attachment H on page 33 of the IFB is Form A. Please provide the form on page 33 in your bid.

63 Section 2

The IFB requires 50 hours of annual product-specialist consultations and permits unused hours to be provided during the following six months.

Please confirm whether these workshop hours are included in the annual interoperability cost or should be priced separately under Standard Support, Premium Support, or Implementation Costs.

The workshops should be included in the annual interoperability costs.

64 Section 2

For the initial migration of legacy PSYCKES Oracle database data into the FHIR repository, what is the total estimated record or resource transaction count that will need to be processed and transformed during backfill?

2-4 TB of data (structured and unstructured)

65 Section 2

In 2. Deliverables letter VI specifies 50 annual hours of technical workshops with a 6-month rollover rule into the subsequent year. Should the cost for these workshop hours be included in the annual product license fee, or priced separately under the Standard/Premium support rates in Attachment D?

The cost of these workshop hours should be included in the annual product license fee.

66 Section 2

Section 2 requires 50 hours annually of technical workshops by FHIR engineers and solution architects, These are separate requirements.

while Attachment D separately lists 150 Premium Support hours, or 50 hours per year. Are these the same hours, or separate requirements?

67 Section 3

Please clarify the term "20+ million clients." Does this represent unique individuals currently maintained within PSYCKES, total historical individuals, active individuals, or another measure?

Current clients and historical (Once in always in our population)

68 Section 3

The IFB references batch loading of 1TB+ of data. Please provide the expected frequency of these loads, typical and maximum file sizes, required processing windows and any completion-time SLA.

Yes, currently processing 1 TB+ of data weekly and requirements may change in the future.

69 Section 3

Given this is a replacement of an existing production system supporting 20+ million clients, what transition period or parallel-run timeline does OMH anticipate between contract award and full cutover, and is a transition/migration plan a required deliverable within the proposal, or handled post-award?

What tools are in place today to facilitate this process end to end?

Tools to facilitate project planning include Jira, Cisco WebEx videoconferencing, and Microsoft Office 365 including Teams.

70 Section 3

The IFB mentions supporting 1,700+ facilities and writing real-time FHIR Observation data to major EMRs (e.g., Epic). How many discrete EHR vendor systems or endpoint instances require direct interface configuration vs. standard public FHIR APIs?

Currently OMH is working with one vendor. The plan is to expand to 5 direct connections in the coming year.

71 Section 3

Outside of Epic, what are the predominant EMR/EHR vendors used across the participating 1,700+ facilities (e.g., Cerner/Oracle Health, MEDITECH, Netsmart)?

Cerner/Oracle Health, MEDITECH, Netsmart, Cerner Millennium, CPSI/TruBridge, eClinical Works

Section 3

While the IFB notes a ~5,000 CDS Hooks/min peak rate and 1TB+ batch capacity, what is the average daily volume (in MB/GB or message counts) for ongoing inbound C-CDA, HL7 v2, NDJSON, and CSV files?

73 Section 3

Beyond the ~5,000 CDS Hooks/min peak rate noted in Section 3, what is the expected average daily and peak hourly transaction count for incoming FHIR REST API queries (such as PSYCKES Clinical Summary data fetches)?

17,000 per day currently is the average daily transaction volume.

74 Section 3

If OMH’s production footprint, data volumes, transaction volumes, facilities, integrations, or environments materially exceed the current-state quantities (as specified in Sections 3 and 4) during the contract term, will the parties be permitted to mutually scope and price the resulting capacity or licensing changes?

Any changes to volume and scope after contract commencement would be mutually negotiated and need OSC and DOB approval.

75 Section 4

The IFB requires bidders to indicate the estimated FTE or person-hours necessary to achieve production readiness at the current scale and performance level. Please identify where this estimate should be entered and whether OMH requires a supporting implementation schedule, staffing plan, assumptions, and breakdown by project phase.

Estimations of FTEs or person-hours to fulfill the scope of work in the bid are requested. Enter all work hour estimates supporting the projected cost, schedule, staffing plan, and scope of work to respond to the work bid. Organizing the cost estimate by year and project phase or sprint is useful.

76 Section 4

Please define the required functionality associated with “Live Bundle” and “EasyShare SMART Health Links (SHL).” Are these references to specific existing products/features, or may Bidders provide equivalent functionality compliant with the applicable standards?

Live Bundle: In FHIR, a "Bundle" is a container resource that groups other resources together (e.g., a patient's medication list, immunizations, and lab results).

SMART Health Links (SHL): This is an open, consensus-based standard (developed under the VCI coalition and SMART Health IT) designed to share health data securely. Unlike static PDFs or paper records, an SHL is a lightweight, shareable link (often represented as a QR code) that points to an encrypted payload stored in the cloud. The recipient can scan the QR code or click the link, enter a recipient-managed passcode, and securely download the clinical data.

Bidders can provide functionality compliant with the standards

77 Section 4

Will the selected solution operate within an OMH/NYS-owned AWS environment, or is the selected Contractor expected to provide and manage the hosting environment within its own cloud account?

OMH Owned

78 Section 4

Section 4 describes the current production platform as HAPI FHIR on AWS EKS with PostgreSQL. Is OMH open to alternative FHIR-native repository technologies (e.g., a managed cloud FHIR service) provided all functional and performance requirements in Sections 1 and 3 are met?

OMH's current platform relies on custom engineering already built on Smile CDR like Custom patient-matching operation, Consent check, CDS Hooks customization for complex needs check, Direct relational access for analytics/audit, Kafka/MSK event-driven integration (Camel, DMS CDC), CODAP flow

Before OMH considers a FHIR-native managed cloud repository, vendors should confirm it can support the agency’s required customizations at production scale. Specifically custom operations, consent interceptors, direct data access and Kafka-based integration.

79 Section 4

Section 4 references deployment on AWS EKS. Will the contractor be required to deploy and operate the software within OMH’s existing AWS cloud environment, or is the bidder expected to host the platform in a vendor-managed SaaS/Cloud tenant?

OMH hosts on AWS.

80 Section 4

If deployed within OMH's AWS environment, will OMH cover the underlying AWS cloud infrastructure consumption costs (EKS, compute, PostgreSQL storage)?

81 Section 4

The Current State Overview (Section

4) describes the current production environment as built on HAPI FHIR on AWS EKS with specific throughputs (~5,000 CDS Hooks/min, etc.). Does OMH expect a seamless, zero-downtime migration of the existing database and schema, or will a net-new deployment where data re-ingestion and re-indexing from source databases occurs be acceptable?

In the existing platform, OMH had zero downtime during migration and OMH plans to do the same going forward.

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The IFB states that bidders without current implementation readiness at the required scale must complete the Implementation Costs line in Attachment D. For a commercially available platform that already provides the required interoperability capabilities, should this line include only OMH-specific migration, configuration, mapping, testing, and cutover activities?

All anticipated project activities supporting a successful implementation should be included. This includes migrating existing data exchange partners to a new production platform, design, transition to operations, and training to support operations.

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Are HAPI FHIR, PostgreSQL, Apache Camel, and Apache Kafka listed solely to describe the current environment, or are any of these technologies required to remain part of the future-state architecture?

Yes, OMH desires these components in the future-state architecture.