Soldiers Homes EMR RFR QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.docx

Commonwealth of Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS) Massachusetts Department of Veterans’ Services’ Chelsea Soldiers’ Home and the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

regarding the

Request for Responses for the Soldiers’ Homes Electronic Medical Record (EMR) System

Document Number: 22EHSKAEMRSYSTEM

COMMBUYS Bid Number: BD-22-1039-EHS01-EHS02-65930

Q&A Issue Date: November 18, 2021

This document contains responses to questions received regarding the Request for Responses for the Soldiers’ Homes Electronic Medical Record (EMR) System issued on November 2, 2021, by the Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS) on behalf of the Department of Veterans’ Services’ Chelsea Soldiers’ Home and the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home (RFR). Answers have been provided to those questions which are of general interest and relevant to the preparation of a Response to the RFR, further to RFR Section 3.1.1.

Q1. Attachment A, Functional Requirements Medication Administration, H1.1 states as follows: ‘The system shall support seamless, electronic integration with the in-house Pharmacy management software. Pharmacy management software is not part of this procurement.’ Is the goal to have all services occurring at the Homes to use one single EMR but interface to SOPS on the back end to maintain SOPS record – such that onsite pharmacy activity will shift to the Soldiers’ Homes EMR system with interface to SOPS?

A1. Further to RFR Section 1.1, the goal is to have the Soldier’s Homes EMR interfaced to the SOPS Pharmacy systems. CPOE, with interaction checking, eMAR and bar coding will be part of the Soldiers’ Homes EMR. Orders should interface to the SOPS Pharmacy system. The SOPS Pharmacy will not be part of the Soldiers’ Homes EMR but via integration should update Omnicell and the eMAR.

Q2. In Attachment B, RFR Technical Requirements, Section A, what is the purpose of the blank Column E – between Requirement Column D and Bidder Response Column F? How should Bidders complete this Column E?

A2. It is not necessary for Bidders to complete or provide any information in Column E. We apologize for the confusion.

Q3. Attachment D, Cost Workbook and the detailed cost workbook tabs contain a Column C – Requirement Ref # from RFP. Can Bidders leave this information blank and only complete when it makes sense to do so, i.e., cost of a specific custom interface?

A3. Further to RFR (including, without limitation, Sections 3.2.3 and 3.2.4), Bidders should be as detailed as possible when completing Attachment D, Cost Workbook and identify the Requirements from the RFR as much as feasible.

Q4. Please provide the following details on # beds/levels of care for each facility with a breakdown of:

a. # of LTC beds per facility

b. # of Domiciliary beds per facility

c. # of Skilled Nursing (SNF) beds per facility

d. # of Hospice beds per facility

e. # of Memory Care (Dementia/Alzheimer’s) beds per facility.

A4. Holyoke (includes planned census changes):

# of LTC beds - 204 # of Domiciliary beds - 0 # of Skilled Nursing (SNF) beds - 0 # of Hospice beds - 0 - do not have designated hospice beds # of Memory Care (Dementia/Alzheimer’s) beds per facility - 30 # of Adult Day Health Care participants - 40-50 Chelsea (includes planned census changes):

# of LTC beds - 154 # of Domiciliary beds - 305 # of Skilled Nursing (SNF) beds - 88 # of Hospice beds per facility - 0 # of Memory Care (Dementia/Alzheimer’s) beds - 0 Please note that these numbers represent an estimated ‘future state’ of the Soldiers’ Homes and may be subject to change.

Q5. Please provide the following anticipated users of the EMR system:

a. # of prescribers (i.e., medical doctors, psychiatrists, NPs)

b. # of non-prescribers that may enter orders (medications, labs, etc.) on behalf of another clinician.

A5. Holyoke:

# of prescribers (i.e., medical doctors, psychiatrists, NPs) - 5 MD’s, 2 NP’s # of non-prescribers that may enter orders (medications, labs, etc.) on behalf of another clinician - 140 other staff who may enter orders. This number may change of time based on current conditions. Nurses could enter telephone orders which would then need to be co-signed by the MD.

Chelsea:

# of prescribers - 4 # of non-prescribers- 0 -Nurses could enter telephone orders which would then need to be co-signed by the MD.

Please note that these numbers represent an estimated ‘current state’ of the Homes and may be subject to change.

Q6. Further to RFR Section 2.3.2, Section A – A2 System Administrator, is the Commonwealth seeking a full time System Administrator(s) (SA) to be provided by the Vendor or is the Commonwealth seeking confirmation that the Commonwealth’s SA(s) will be able to perform the functions listed without assistance from the Vendor?

A6. Further to RFR Sections 2.3.2 and 3.2.5.5, yes, the Vendor should provide a full time System Administrator with a full team to support the solution.

Q7. Further to RFR Section 2.3.2, Section A – A5 Operations Support, is the Commonwealth seeking the Vendor to supply Help Desk services, commonly referred to as Level 1 Support, or is the Commonwealth seeking confirmation that the Vendor will provide support to respond to the Commonwealth’s help desk staff?

A7. Further to RFR Section 2.3.2, yes, the Vendor shall provide the Help Desk Services (Level 1 Support) to the Commonwealth.

Q8. Further to RFR Section 2.3.2, Section A – A8 Mobile Devices, can the Commonwealth provide a list of devices and platforms to which the Bidder’s solution needs to interface?

A8. Further to RFR Section 2.3.2, Bidder Responses should include a description of how the Bidder’s solution interfaces with multiple devices and platforms.

Q9. Further to RFR Section 2.3.2, Section A – A11 Authorization and Access Control, is AIMS Oracle Identify Manager SAML 2.0 compatible?

A9. Yes, AIMS is SAML 2.0 compatible.

Q10. How will Bidder Responses to this RFR evaluated?

A10. RFR Section 3.3 refers to how the SST will evaluate Bidder Responses. The following is an excerpt from RFR Section 3.3 describing how the SST will evaluate the Bidder Responses:

Responses will be evaluated based on the criteria listed below, which are listed with the most important criteria first:

· Proposed system design and ability to satisfy the system Requirements including system integration and data migration;

· Ability of the customer to make changes with customization/configuration on the core product;

· Ability to develop flexible testing algorithms;

· Medical Device system connectivity;

· Usability of the workflows and overall user experience;

· Implementation plan and timeline;

· Training plan and outcome measurements/assessments criteria;

· The design of the software and the service level agreement allows the future core upgrades to be forward compatible with any user customization and configuration with ease;

· Experience of the Bidder in comparable, successful projects;

· Staffing plan and skill level and experience of the project team, including subcontract relationships;

· The ability of the application and hosting environment to satisfy the security and privacy Requirements of the system;

· The ability of the system to comply with the Accessibility requirements set forth in this RFR;

· Proposed service level agreement for cloud hosting; and

· Supplier Diversity Program participation.

Rating Process:

1. Evaluate Functional Requirements, Technical Requirements and Business Responses in accordance with the criteria described above.

2. Provide a composite rating of “Excellent” “Very Good”, “Good” “Fair” “Poor” or “Non-Responsive” for each subcategory/category of the Functional Requirements, Technical Requirements and Business Responses.

3. Assign an overall rating to each Bidder’s combined Functional Requirements, Technical Requirements and Business Responses.

4. Evaluation of the Supplier Diversity Program (SDP) Plan: Bidders’ SDP Plans shall be reviewed and ranked based on the Bidder’s percentage commitment to their SDP Partner(s) using rankings of “highest among Bidders”, “middle” and “lowest/lower end”. EOHHS will favorably consider Bidders with higher SDP Plan commitments. See Section 4.13 for more information on the Supplier Diversity Program.

5. The SST will review each Attachment D, Cost Workbook response for its reasonableness, competitiveness, and value to EOHHS/Soldiers’ Home. The cost will be one factor, but not the sole factor. The SST is not required to choose the Bidder that proposes the lowest cost. The SST may make adjustments to the Attachment D, Cost Workbook response, for evaluation purposes only, if determined necessary to more accurately represent the correct total cost to the SST. The SST reserves the right to make cost adjustments to Responses to ensure that all Responses will be compared on an equal basis.

6. Compare the Responses to one another.

Q11. Attachment A, RFR Functional Requirements, D1.3 states: ‘The system shall have the ability to integrate with third party licensed assessment tools. Please describe which third party licensed assessment tools you are supporting.’ Can the Commonwealth please specify which tools they would like to integrate with, or provide a use case example?

A11. Bidder Responses should include a description of how the Bidder’s solution integrated with multiple third part licensed assessment tools and examples of such tools may include, but are not limited to, DSM-5 Assessments and FIM Assessments, and such ancillary clinical service providers for whom the Soldiers’ Homes will want to have either direct access to the EMR as a credentialed provider or from whom the Soldiers’ Homes will want to have a bridge to the vendors’ EMR as Vorha wound care, Genesis rehab, foot care nurses, and hospice agencies.

Q12. Attachment A, RFR Functional Requirements, H1.1 states: ‘The system shall support seamless, electronic integration with the in-house Pharmacy management software. Pharmacy management software is not part of this procurement.’ Can the Commonwealth clarify if SOPS is a proprietary custom developed pharmacy management software system OR a commercial pharmacy software system? If the latter, please provide the name of the vendor and version of the software.

A12. Currently, SOPS uses MetaCare, by Meta Healthcare IT Solutions, for the Pharmacy Solution, which is a commercial software system.