Long term care ombudsmen program

The State Fiscal Accountability Authority, Division of Procurement Services, is requesting proposals on behalf of the South Carolina Department on Aging for a Long-Term Care Ombudsmen Program Case Management System, with proposals due September 1, 2026, and a non-mandatory pre-proposal conference on July 30 at 10:00 AM EST via Microsoft Teams.

The scope encompasses a cloud-based case management platform serving 10 regions across 46 counties, with core functionality for complaint intake, investigation, coding, tracking, facility management, volunteer management, and workflow automation. The system must comply with the Older Americans Act and National Ombudsman Reporting System (NORS) standards, generate prebuilt and custom reporting compatible with NORS and Older Americans Act Performance System (OAAPS) standards, and deliver document management with role-based access control and tiered permissions for volunteer ombudsmen, ombudsmen, regional managers, and state administrators.

Security and compliance requirements are mandatory: AES-256 encryption, three-year audit logging, Tier III or better data center hosting entirely within the contiguous United States, and all data components residing domestically with no external replication or backup. Technical support must include a toll-free help desk with 90% of calls answered within 90 seconds, critical issues resolved within 15 minutes, and high-priority issues within 2 hours; uptime commitments are 99.9% during business hours (7:00 AM–7:00 PM EST) and 99.0% off-hours, with scheduled downtime limited to 6 hours per 30-day period during off-peak hours.

The contract is a potential seven-year agreement with an initial one-year term commencing December 22, 2026, and six optional one-year renewals. The awardee must provide comprehensive project management, system deployment, configuration to South Carolina Department on Aging nomenclature, initial face-to-face training for statewide and regional staff, ongoing virtual training modules, and continuous U.S.-based technical support. Maintenance and system upgrades are included at no additional cost. Questions are due July 31 at 1:00 PM EST. Award is expected December 10, 2026. The procurement officer is Faith Williams, 803-737-2925, fmwilliams@mmo.sc.gov.