RFQ Clarifying Questions - 3 .pdf

315 SW Fifth Ave, Portland, OR 97204 | 800-224-4840 | TTY 711 | careoregon.org Page 1

George Marlton Procurement Director

Procurement Department 503-488-7646 vendorservices@careoregon.org

REQUEST FOR QUOTES #2024-11

DATA QUALITY ANALYSIS

RESPONSE TO CLARIFYING QUESTIONS #3

May 14, 2024

Note that these are questions submitted by interested firms to the above referenced solicitation.

The below answers are for clarification purposes only and in no way alter or amend the RFQ as published.

1. Could CareOregon provide estimated dates of award notification and project start?

Answer: Tentative award and project commencement are likely to occur within the timeframe of June/ July 2024.

2. Is CareOregon amenable to a project schedule longer than 4 months given the time needed to assess implementation of new data quality protocols?

Answer: Yes, project schedule can be amendable.

3. Could CareOregon provide any further background on its current data system and software being used?

Answer: CareOregon has an on-premise Enterprise Datawarehouse built on SQL Server / SSIS (SQL Server Integration Services). We are in the process of migrating from on-prem to Snowflake / Azure Data Factory.

4. Could CareOregon share information on the scale of the database that it expects the contractor to work with as part of the data quality assessment?

Answer: Our on-premises EDW size is 3 TB and Snowflake EDW size is 1.1 TB.

5. Does CareOregon require the vendor to have any specific technical requirements related to the IT functions?

Answer: Requirement is that they have previously executed Data Quality Analysis for an Enterprise Data Warehouse system.

6. What type of data security compliance does CareOregon require of the vendor?

Answer: Standard HIPAA security compliance.

7. Is the vendor required to handle PII or will the data that’s shared for project purposes be de-identified?

Answer: Yes, they will be required to handle PII and PHI.

8. How many datasets will be included in the data quality analysis?

Answer: All the datasets are in Enterprise Datawarehouse system.

9. What type of data does each dataset include? Is the data structured? Does it include http://careoregon.org/ mailto:vendorservices@careoregon.org

315 SW Fifth Ave, Portland, OR 97204 | 800-224-4840 | TTY 711 | careoregon.org Page 2 unstructured data, such as free text?

Answer: Datasets includes both structured and semistructured.

10. How many variables are in each dataset?

Answer: Question is not clear, please revise.

11. How many lines are in each dataset?

Answer: Question is not clear, please revise.

12. How many stakeholder interviews need to occur?

Answer: Between 30-40 interviews will be conducted, encompassing both individual and small groups and all though remote sessions. Amongst these interviews, 4-5 interviews will involve stakeholders.

13. How many trainings should occur? For each training, approximately how many attendees will occur? What is the desired duration for each training? Will the training occur in person or virtual? If in person, should we allocate a budget for a venue?

Answer: Roughly around 10 ongoing training sessions for new staff and will require train-the trainer training as well. Training length should be consistent with enough time to complete the training. Generally, one hour; however, that can be adjusted as necessary.

Up to 10 – 15 people will attend the workshops. All workshops and training sessions will be conducted remotely, and the preferred method is MS Teams.

14. How many/which data sources are in scope?

Answer: Up to 120.

15. Has the evaluation of new tools and technologies already begun? Is there a short list of front-runners?

Answer: No, not yet.

16. Have you implemented any data quality initiatives in the past? If so, what were the successes and challenges encountered?

Answer: No, this data quality is a new initiative. But we do data quality testing to check for duplicates, uniqueness, row count etc.

17. Do you have a formal data governance program in place? If so, what are the key roles and responsibilities within the program?

Answer: Yes. Our current structure is that each data and analytics manager owns a portion of data governance. Below are a few items that we do have in place:

• Data Stewards – we are slowly rolling this out to the various departments within the company. We currently have a trainer leading this group.

• Various workgroups and committees related to data governance including but not limited to: Analytics Community of Practice, Analytics Skills Lab, Analytics Workgroup, Data Governance Committee, Data & Analytics Leaders

• Data governance framework managed by the Analytics Program & BI Manager

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18. What are the biggest challenges you face with data quality? (e.g., data inconsistencies, missing data, inaccurate data) Answer: Issues like missing data or inaccurate data arise when we reactively address data quality problems reported by users instead of proactively detecting and addressing them before they become significant.

19. How is data currently being used within CareOregon? Are there specific areas where data quality improvement would have a significant impact?

Answer: The current data is used for improving cross departmental operation efficiencies, business insights, improving patient outcomes and informed decisions. Most of the areas will significantly impact with the data quality improvement.

20. What is the technology (vendor/type) for the Enterprise Data Warehouse system in use and what specifically is the solution used for ETL?

Answer: SQL Server, Azure Data Factory, and Snowflake.

21. On page 2 in section 3, for point 6: what is your expectation for facilitating live workshops and trainings sessions for staff during this 4-month engagement as opposed to materials/recordings delivered at the end of the project?

Answer: Roughly around 10 ongoing training sessions for new staff and will require train-the trainer training as well. Training length should be consistent with enough time to complete the training. Generally, one hour; however, that can be adjusted as necessary.

22. We understand that the requirement of this RFP is for analyzing the current/ As-Is state of the CareOregon Data Quality and providing recommendations. Is it also expected from the vendor to implement and support the solution? Kindly confirm.

Answer: No.

23. Is the requirement for onsite analysis or remote? If remote, can it be done from offshore

(e.g. Canada, India)?

Answer: All workshops and training sessions will be conducted remotely and the preferred method is MS Teams. We cannot contract with companies that are offshore or companies that utilize offshore subcontractors. All work and data must remain within the United States.

24. Where is the current data stored (on-prem/cloud/hybrid)? If cloud, which cloud has it been hosted on (AWS/GCP/Azure/Others)? Please share the name.

Answer: On prem is on SQL Server and cloud EDW is in Snowflake.

25. What are the different types of data sources that are being used? How are they integrated with the solution?

Answer: Currently SQL, Excel, flat files, EDI are the data sources that being used. We build an inbound process to a staging location and then implement them in the EDW structure.

26. Could you please share the architectural or infrastructure overview diagram or flow for the current state visibility?

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Answer: We have existing documentation and will share after contract award.

27. Is CareOregon open to sharing the documentation, and/ or any other detail required to perform the analysis of the current/ As-Is solution? This will help us to have a better understanding of the current scenario. Please provide your confirmation.

Answer: We have existing documentation and will share after contract award.

28. Please let us know if CareOregon has an estimated project kick-off/start date (if any).

Answer: See answer to question #1.

29. What is the volume (in GB) of data that is currently stored in the CareOregon solution?

Answer: We have 2 EDW systems. One is on prem and another is in Snowflake Cloud.

Onprem size is 3 TB and Snowflake size 1.2 TB.

30. What is the approx. no. of internal and external users of the current solution?

Answer: Up to 1500 users.

31. Can you please specify the user groups/teams going to use the solution implemented through this engagement?

Answer: IT department and various business unit customers internally at CareOregon.

32. Is the budget and timeline only for the analysis and recommendations or does it include the COTS solution/ and procurement of the tools? Please explain.

Answer: Only for the analysis and recommendations.

33. What is the number of systems (where data originates / gets processed / consumed) in scope?

Answer: Approximately 15 – Claims processing system, clinical data system, PBM and other delegated benefits managers, regulatory bodies and partner data.

34. Is there a technical architecture you can share?

Answer: See answer to question #26.

35. What is the number of teams/stakeholders who work with data (input, process, use) that you would expect to be part of the assessment process?

Answer: Approximately 4 teams within IT and 4 business teams

36. Are you able to provide any additional details about what you are looking for with the question, "Identify any issues or concerns in social media about your firm.”

Answer: Please provide company values and morals around this topic.

37. Is CareOregon currently using any Data Quality tool?

Answer: No. We are expecting this effort may guide future tool selection.

38. Are you using Windows based servers or Linux servers?

Answer: Windows Based.

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39. Do we need to consider historical load for any lookups as part of data quality checks. If yes, what could be the data size of your historical load & daily size of incremental load?

Answer: No.

40. Do you have any scheduled jobs or APIs to pull external data or 3rd party data that would run before they ingest to DWH?

Answer: Yes. We have scheduled jobs and APIs that pull external data from various 3rd parties that first go to a staging area before ingesting into EDW.

41. Do you have a mechanism of maintaining Metadata management in place?

Answer: Yes. We have a data catalog in the early stages for building out and maintaining metadata.

42. For data ownership and stewardship - do you have any data tokenization in place for role-based access controls for existing data storage buckets.

Answer: Yes

43. For Data Enrichment, are you using online data or offline data or any third party data?

Answer: Offline and third-party data. We use NPES for additional information regarding Providers.

44. Document framework for implementing new data quality processes to measure and monitor data quality on ongoing basis.” Can CareOregon please clarify what they envision the framework including and what deliverables they associate with this framework?

Answer: Framework that is extensible, scalable and easy to use.

45. Can you provide a scale of size on number of staff or expected workshops/training sessions?

Answer: Up to 20.

46. Are there already established internal systems CareOregon uses that needs to be considered as part of input or output systems expected to work with recommended technologies to perform the capabilities asked for in the quotations above.

Answer: We do have various internal systems that are data inputs into our EDW. A common example is data from multiple locations (internal system and external 3rd party) that are combined into an EDW analysis table.

47. Could you describe the stakeholders that we’d need to develop data quality questionnaires for? Who are they? How many of these groups / organizations would we need to consider?

Answer: Primarily Healthcare and Data Analysts and Actuaries.

48. Can you describe the data we’d be working with? E.g. member contact information, medical history, coverage, etc. Will we only be working with member data or also internal organizational data?

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Answer: Healthcare data includes but not limited to: member demographic data, enrollment, coverage, claims, authorizations, care management, survey and much more.

49. How does the data import process work? Are you obtaining data from third parties that you then have to format and clean yourself?

Answer: The data is imported into the system with ETL processes such as SSIS or with ADF. Yes, for few of the sources, data is cleaned-up/transformed before loading into

DWH.

50. Could you describe the data domains that you refer to in the scope?

Answer: Examples: Member: demographics, coverage, enrollment; Provider: type, specialists, demographics, participating plans; Claims: encounters covering services, diagnosis, etc.

51. Do you already have established internal data quality metrics other than the accuracy, completeness, and consistency dimensions you mention?

Answer: No. This effort is expected to provide input for establishing these metrics.

52. Are you only using this data for customer support or are you using it for customer insights as well?

Answer: Data is used for support, insights, metrics and more.

53. How are data updated, deleted or retrieved from each domain?

Answer: Through ETL processes.

54. What current policies/processes are being met statewide? What would you like to improve on?

Answer: Asses current state of Data Quality at CareOregon. Recommend framework data cleansing and enrichment processes to enhance data accuracy.

55. Are there any current bridges developed between domains?

Answer: Currently, inconsistent bridges.

56. Will contractors have access to all data, or are there limitations to what can be accessed?

Answer: To be determined; But there will be some limitations because of PHI.

57. How many types of insurance and services are provided?

Answer: Medicaid and Medicare

58. What size of beneficiary base (in #s) do you serve?

Answer: Over 550K members

59. What type of database platform(s) do you have under your “Enterprise Data Warehouse” and for that purpose?

a. How many data sources are there currently?

b. What would be considered the key data sources?

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c. What current BI, business application, operational systems, and reporting tools are you using?

d. How many departments provide data?

e. Is your current database in the could or on-premise?

Answer:

a. Up to 120.

b. Claims, Enrollments, Clinical data

c. BI and reporting tools: SSRS, tableau, SAS and Power BI.

d. Data is provided by systems or partners or regulatory bodies

e. Hybrid: on-prem SQL server DWH and Snowflake in cloud.

60. What equity measures are you currently using?

Answer: TBD

61. How much of the current processes/data strategies are documented?

Answer: The existing SSIS and ADF ETL processes are documented.

62. Do you have organizational and program-specific logic models that help align data collected with intended activities and outcomes?

Answer: TBD

63. Aside from making more informed decisions, improving patient outcomes, and streamlining operational efficiency, what do you want to be able to DO with the data?

For example, do you want to create more dashboard visualizations at specific department or client levels?

Answer: The data is used in adhoc analysis, regulatory compliance and operational reporting, dashboards, metrics, exports to 3rd parties and much more.

64. How will the vendor access the data or will the data already be provided?

Answer: Data sent externally is provided via data extracts and generally through SFTP.

End of Clarifying Questions #3