ADDENDUM RFP 23147
UPDATED November 14, 2023
TIME: 2:00 PM CST
QUESTION 1: In the site meeting, it was stated that the charts average 75 pages. In the RFP on page 7, #5, B. it says that pages are estimated at 70 and approximately 20% are double sided. Can you tell me which is correct?
RESPONSE 1: Charts average an estimated 70 pages and approximately 20% of those 70 pages are double sided.
QUESTION 2: Is the medical records number bar coded throughout the chart?
RESPONSE 2: No. Barcode is only on outside of paper chart.
QUESTION 3: Can you verify the number of users per facility and if those are concurrent users? Also, can you tell us how often these charts will be accessed?
RESPONSE 3: Users would be from one facility. Five users minimum, Ten users maximum. Yes, concurrent usage is a possibility.
QUESTION 4: Can you please confirm that there is a database that will be shared that ties the MRN, Name and Birthdate for each chart?
RESPONSE 4: No database is available. An Excel spreadsheet with MRN, Name, and Date of Birth will be provided.
QUESTION 5: What address should be used on the Certificate of Insurance?
RESPONSE 5: Please use 2400 Belvidere Road, #L50 Waukegan IL 60085-
QUESTION 6: Regarding the Service Level Expectations on page 8, the RFP asks the vendor to describe how metadata is captured and associated with each scanned record. The OCR software will capture the text. What other metadata is Lake County looking to capture besides OCR info? What format does it need to be in?
RESPONSE 6: MRN, First Name, Last Name, Date of Birth (mm,dd,yyyy), in text format .
QUESTION 7: Under Scope of Services, part 5, the RFP states that the chosen vendor will “scan each chart in section order without dividing or identifying sections with barcodes.” Can this be clarified? During the walk-through it was determined that each record should have a barcode which the vendor can scan to capture the index information of the patient name, date of birth and medical record number. Are these the only index fields that will be required?
RESPONSE 7: Each chart has a barcode printed on the outer folder containing MRN, last name, first name and date of birth; these are the only index fields required. The vendor is not required to create barcodes for the scanned files.
QUESTION 8: Under Scope of Services, part 6, the RFP states that the chosen vendor should have “integration capabilities to enable future transfer of records to other systems.” What other systems or system formats will the data be required to integrate with in the future for this project? Specifically, what platform or database?
RESPONSE 8: See Page 9. C. Security and Compliance #5. F
QUESTION 9: On the Price Proposal Sheet, the vendor is asked to list the unit cost of the various components of the work involved. How is the unit cost to be broken down? For example, is the unit cost for the transportation of charts supposed to be a per-box price? Is the purging and preparation of the charts supposed to be a per-chart cost? Is the unit cost of the scanning of the charts supposed to be a per-image price? And what is the unit of the cloud storage component?
RESPONSE 9: Per unit as listed here. Include a total cost based on numbers given in the RFP.
Transportation: Per Box; Purging: Per Chart; Preparation: Per Chart; Scanning: Per page (image); Cloud Storage: GB (gigabytes)
QUESTION 10: Can you clarify what the chosen vendor’s responsibility is regarding Exhibit D – Health Record File Prep Sheet? From the information we received at the pre-bid meeting, it sounds like the chosen vendor will just need to scan each page of the record from front to back, without noting individual sections, while discarding any tabs which may separate out each section. So can the chosen vendor disregard the instructions on this page?
RESPONSE 10: See page 7, Scope of Services, section A.4 Prepare active patient charts; this step occurs prior to section A.5. Scan active patient charts.
QUESTION 11: Are electronic signatures for the included documents allowed?
RESPONSE 11: Yes electronic signatures will be accepted for the required RFP documents to be submitted and will be allowed.
QUESTION 12: What font is used to create the barcodes on the barcode sheets?
RESPONSE 12: Unsure
QUESTION13: Are the files listed in Exhibit D already in the order requested?
RESPONSE 13: Yes
QUESTION 14: Are the files in the date order requested?
RESPONSE 14: Yes, reverse chronological order. To be verified in Prepping see Exhibit D.
QUESTION 15: Would it be acceptable to scan all documents instead of destroying some of the documents?
RESPONSE 15: No
QUESTION 16: Is color scanning required for any of the documents? If so, which document?
RESPONSE 16: No – Grayscale is preferred
QUESTION 17: Can the files to be purged at Zion Health Center be shredded at the Center?
RESPONSE 17: Possible. Stipulate in your proposal.
QUESTION 18: Is there a deadline to complete the project?
RESPONSE 18: Not at this time.
QUESTION 19: Can the vendor leave the StaxonSteel boxes with Lake County after the files have been removed or does the vendor need to remove the StaxonSteel boxes?
RESPONSE 19: Possible. Stipulate in your proposal how charts would be transported and secured, if vendor does not move the charts in the StaxonSteel boxes.
QUESTION 20: Has Lake County secured funding for the project?
RESPONSE 20: Yes
QUESTION 21: Is there a budgeted amount for the project?
RESPONSE 21: Yes, however, we will not disclose this amount.
QUESTION 22: Can you confirm that the project includes a total of 590 boxes measuring 10.5”x12”x24”? (364 from site 1 and 226 from site 2)?
RESPONSE 22: Yes, these numbers were accurate at the time of RFP publication.
QUESTION 23: Can you clarify whether all boxed records will be prepped for scanning or whether vendor will be responsible for identifying which charts remain in retention and which can be destroyed without scanning?
RESPONSE 23: LCHD/CHC will provide an excel spreadsheet of the chart numbers (MRN) that need to be purged. All other charts will be prepped for scanning.
See Pages 6 & 7, Scope of Services, section A.3. and 4.
QUESTION 24: If some charts are to be pulled for destruction and not scanned, what obligations does the vendor have for documentation of these patient records?
RESPONSE 24: A destruction certificate is required.
QUESTION 25: Do records include any unique IDs such as SSN or MR numbers which can be connected to demographic info provided by the department as a text database or spreadsheet?
RESPONSE 25: LCHD/CHC will provide an excel spreadsheet containing the chart numbers (MRN), Name, DOB for each chart needing Preparation and Scanning.
QUESTION 26: What indexes (name, dob, MR #...) need to be captured by the vendor?
RESPONSE 26: MRN, Last Name, First Name, Date of Birth
QUESTION 27: Based on 70 images per chart, even when adding 20 percent for double sides, and estimated total of 22,440 charts, total image yield will be approx. 1.57 M. Is it sufficient to provide an all-inclusive per-image rate and an estimated total cost based on the figure, with the obvious assumption that actual total cost will be based on actual image total?
RESPONSE 27: Yes
QUESTION 28: It would be much more cost-efficient to have a scanning vendor create image files and format them according to client preferences, with a local or remote cloud storage option procured as a separate consideration. Would you consider a proposal for logically named files and/or for files formatted to target any digital management system the county may independently acquire or is a remote hosting solution an absolute requirement?
RESPONSE 28: Stipulate in proposal.
QUESTION 29: Is 200 DPI bitonal scanning sufficient?
RESPONSE 29: Yes
QUESTION 30: Do you need OCR text-searchability for digital PDF files?
RESPONSE 30: Stipulate your standard practices and capabilities in the proposal.
QUESTION 31: Can all records be picked up at one time if on-demand access is included at no cost?
RESPONSE 31: Yes
QUESTION 32: Should destruction costs be included in the pricing?
RESPONSE 32: Yes, please include as a separate item in the Scope of Services prices.
QUESTION 33: Are the 4,406 paper charts to be purged from the Zion Health Center already accounted for in the 8,344 total # of charts to be scanned.
RESPONSE 33: No. The 4,406 charts to be purged are not part of the total to be scanned. Total to be scanned is 8,344.
QUESTION 34: Do the 70 pages per chart include the 20% backside estimate? Or are there 84 pages per chart to be bid on.
RESPONSE 34: 70 pages per chart – of that 70 pages, 20% are double sided.
QUESTION 35: Is there a LCHD preferred Cloud storage solution or would you like the vendor to provide their own solution?
RESPONSE 35: Vendor to provide solution in their proposal.
QUESTION 36: Would LCHD entertain a site visit to vendor location site?
RESPONSE 36: The Pre-proposal meeting and Site Visit was already conducted on November 8 as noted in the RFP document, no other sites visits will be entertained.
QUESTION 37: Does LCHD prefer vendor location to be within 50 miles of the (2) LCHD Health Center facilities?
RESPONSE 37: No
QUESTION 38: Please describe what patient chart information LCHD has available electrically to assist with indexing / match and merge possibilities.
RESPONSE 38: None. An excel spreadsheet with MRN, Last Name, First Name, Date of Birth will be provided.
QUESTION 39: What turnaround time will LCHD require with this high volume of patient charts / boxes to be scanned.
RESPONSE 39: Stipulate your timeframe in the proposal.
QUESTION 40: Are there any paginated (numbered 1 of 5, etc.) pages in your records?
RESPONSE 40: Yes
QUESTION 41: Are the 70 pages the average after purging the record that will need to be scanned? If so, what is the average pages of a complete record?
RESPONSE 41: This will vary – unable to determine
QUESTION 42: What percentage of the pages do you feel need to be put in date order?
RESPONSE 42: Paper chart sections should be ordered correctly and prepping should verify.
QUESTION 43: Zion Location: Confirmation that there are a total of 12,750 total records minus 4406 purged records resulting in 8334 to be scanned records.
RESPONSE 43: Yes
QUESTION 44: How many recalls (requested charts) do you expect the vendor should anticipate monthly while performing this project?
RESPONSE 44: One
QUESTION 45: Records will be held for 1 month and then will be destroyed.
RESPONSE 45: See Page 7, Scope of Services, section A.7.
QUESTION 46: There is no standard of scanning (i.e. dpi) that you are requesting.
RESPONSE 46: 200 dpi minimum
QUESTION 47: How long are you thinking of storing the scanned images in the cloud before exporting to another system?
RESPONSE 47: Uncertain at this time.
QUESTION 48: Index requirements; please specify required index data fields to be extracted.
RESPONSE 48: MRN, Patient Name, and Date of Birth.
QUESTON 49: Exhibit D – are charts currently prepped in order in which they are to be scanned? Is there expectation for vendor to pre-prep documents per instructions in Exhibit D? If so, please provide estimated %.
RESPONSE 49: Charts are in the preferred order but are not prepped for scanning. See Page 7 Scope of Services, section A.4., as well as Exhibit D
QUESTION 50: How many users require access to SaaS repository? Will levels of access vary based on user roles?
RESPONSE 50: Five to ten users. Access will not be role-based.
QUESTION 51: For Belvidere location, should line item for purging be added to price sheet? It is our understanding that physical documents are not to be returned to LCHD and are to be destroyed once digitized, please clarify if LCHD has different requirement.
RESPONSE 51: No purging is required for the charts at the Belvidere location. See page 7, Scope of Services, section A.7.
QUESTION 52: Please clarify unit of measure for all line items on pricing sheet.
RESPONSE 52: Per unit as listed here. Include a total cost based on numbers given in the RFP.
Transportation: Per box; Purging: Per chart; Preparation: Per chart; Scanning: Per page (image);
Cloud Storage: GB (gigabytes)