Pursuant to 60A-1.042, an agency may request information by issuing a written Request for Information. Agencies may use Requests for Information in circumstances including, but not limited to, determining whether or not to competitively procure a commodity or contractual services, determining what solicitation process to use for a particular need, or researching general, special, and/or technical specifications for a solicitation. State of Florida Department of Health Request for Information RFI 16-001 Integrated Florida Environmental Health Information System I. REQUEST FOR INFORMATION The State of Florida, Department of Health (department), Division of Disease Control and Health Protection, Bureau of Environmental Health (bureau) is requesting information regarding integrated environmental health information system providers. This type of system will be used in the department s multiple county offices throughout the state. The department is looking for cost-effective alternatives and/or improved operational functionality to the department s existing environmental health information system. The bureau s intent at this time is to identify potential vendors with software platforms that can fulfill DOH s functional and efficiency requirements. An integral part of this request is to obtain information from the vendor community and become familiar with the data structure, functionality, and interface capabilities of other platforms. II. BACKGROUND The department is statutorily responsible for inspecting, tracking, and permitting a wide range of facilities that are considered to have a potential health impact on the citizens of Florida. The day-to-day work of inspecting and tracking these facilities is de-centralized to employees working at the local Department of Health offices within the 67 counties of Florida under the direction of the bureau in Tallahassee (central office). Currently, the department maintains records on almost 1.7 million systems and facilities in the Environmental Health Database (EHD), with about 150,000 records receiving annual permits and/or inspections and over 47,000 onsite sewage treatment and disposal system (OSTDS) construction applications in 2015. EHD also tracks complaints from the public and the investigation of these complaints. There were over 10,000 complaint records taken in over the last year. The environmental health programs currently in EHD include: Biomedical Waste Body Piercing Food Hygiene Group Care Limited Use Water Migrant Labor Camps Mobile Home Parks OSTDS Construction OSTDS Operating
OSTDS Service Rabies Swimming Pools Tanning Tattooing Complaint Investigations Miscellaneous (tracking for various county-specific programs) Environmental Health Professional Certification The ongoing cost of the EHD development team has become difficult to sustain. There currently is no dedicated funding source for this project and the permitting fees that support the central office as a whole have been reduced. At the same time, the success of this program in the field has produced a significant list of updates and new feature requests from the department offices at the county level as they strive to keep up with changing demands and increased workloads. The department is considering moving this program to a new platform in an effort to support these changing needs and continue to move forward while maintaining an efficient and cost-effective solution. III. GOALS The primary goal is to develop a cost-efficient, integrated software platform to track and record Environmental Health permitting, billing, inspections, and certifications as well as track Environmental Health community outreach, enforcement, and data acquisition activities. IV. TECHNOLOGY The agency recognizes that there may exist in the market solutions that meet the needs of the agency, and seeks an existing software solution. The agency prefers a hosted or SaaS (Software as a Service) solution, but will equally entertain an on-premise solution. The primary technology platform used in the agency is Microsoft Windows.Net, and Microsoft SQL Server. The agency also desires a solution designed to be flexible by changing system behaviors and characteristics through configuration changes as much as possible, rather than application code changes. V. DESIRED SOLUTION CHARACTERISTICS The objectives associated with this request for information are multiple. The following are not to be considered all inclusive: 1. Tracking and Issuance of Permits across Environmental Health Programs. The functionality needs to be flexible enough to allow for and include: a. Annual and Biennial permit cycles; b. Multi-stage permitting with a work flow (OSTDS Construction permitting); c. Printing of permits in batch or individually; d. Client printed permits. 2. Billing, fee distribution, and account management. Billing and invoicing needs to be full-featured and include functionality to allow for: a. Annual and biennial billing; b. Automated billing in batches;
c. Single invoicing; d. On-demand billing with no associated facility record; e. Grouping of fees into a billing scheme to be configured by county; f. County specific fees; g. State fee schedule fees; h. Calculation of fees based upon facility data; i. Proration of fees; j. Emailing of invoices to clients; k. Distribution of fees to multiple accounts both county-specific and state accounts; l. Robust reporting of monies taken in for a given time period including the distribution information. 3. Recording, tracking, and printing of Inspection records. The items included on an inspection record can be program and sub-program specific. This functionality will need to follow state requirement for record retention and form compliance. a. Program and sub-program specific inspection items; b. Program and sub-program specific inspection forms; c. Different inspection frequencies within and between programs; d. Scheduling of follow-up inspections; e. Flexibility to change inspection items as needed per legislative and rule changes. 4. Online portal for processing payments and issuing permits to the public. This system would need to interface with and provide the full range of credit/debit card and Automated Clearing House (ACH) services provided in the state-approved payment processing center and with the Environmental Health permitting database (as developed in this project). 5. Ability for Inspections to be completed and recorded on a mobile device or tablet while off the network. This will need to include the ability to exchange data between the mobile device and the Environmental Health inspection database and the ability to create an inspection report to be printed or emailed from the device (when they are on the department s network). 6. Provide a mechanism to supply extracted data to the public through an online portal (Inspection results, permit facilities, etc.). 7. Provide full-featured training to technical staff and users. This can be train the trainer, but needs to be sufficient to cover all 67 counties. 8. Report development to include standardized, highly-formatted reports, management and accounting reports, and ad hoc reporting. 9. Meet department standards for record retention, data security, and application compliance. 10. Provide audit trail/history for key data fields. 11. Provide a mechanism to store and search by county and program-specific data fields. The counties have specific requirements to characterize and group specific facility records. Providing them with customizable fields, available on all facility records would give them the ability to do this. 12. Provide an email interface to allow for email invoicing, system-generated notifications, and emailing of inspection reports.
13. Ability to record and present supporting data specific to Environmental Health programs. This would include data specific to the permit application and facility. It also includes all contact records with associated addresses, phone numbers and email addresses. 14. Ongoing maintenance and helpdesk type user support. This could be wholly provided by the vendor or could be a coordinated effort between the vendor and department staff. Some updates may require very short turn around due to changes in the law or rule. VI. PROCESS Responses to this RFI will be reviewed by the department for informational purposes only and will not result in the award of a contract. The bureau will review the responses received from this RFI to determine the feasibility of issuing a competitive solicitation for these services. The department may use this RFI as the basis for subsequent vendor meetings and product demonstrations for those firms that meet the desired solution characteristics specified in Section V of this document. If demonstrations are requested, then they will be scheduled directly with only those vendors who respond to all questions in Section VII of this document. If the department receives responses from multiple vendors on the same product, the department will contact the manufacturer of the product and ask them to present the demonstration. Any request for cost information is for budgetary purposes only. Vendors submitting answers to an agency s Request for Information are not prohibited from responding to any related subsequent solicitation. VII. RESPONSE FORMAT The bureau s intent is to identify potential vendors that can fulfill the desired solution characteristics listed in Section V. Potential vendors should address all of the needs listed above in a statement of work with the following sections at a minimum: a. Introduction b. Company and background, along with customers in which similar services are provided c. Solution description: provide information or suggestions regarding all desired solution characteristics listed in Section V d. Technical details: platform specifications, hosting model, system security, server and hardware requirements, licensure requirements e. Support model: operational and upgrade support, enhancement and change support f. General timeline g. Contact information (company, name, phone, email) h. Cost model sufficient to determine initial, approximate costs for an on-premise solution and/or for Software as a Service or hosted solution: include bureau program staff training as well as training at the user level, customer support, updating, and annual and/or onsite costs, if needed, associated with
maintenance services VIII. RESPONSE DATE Responses should address each RFI request/question point by point. Please provide the requested information no later than August 12, 2016. Response can be sent via e- mail to: Elke.Ursin@flhealth.gov with "RFI 16-001" in the subject line. Additional information that cannot be transmitted electronically must also be submitted by August 12, 2016 to the following address: DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH BUREAU OF ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH ATTN: ELKE URSIN 4052 BALD CYPRESS WAY, BIN A08 TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA & 32399-1710 IX. QUESTIONS Please submit all questions concerning the RFI in writing via electronic mail or fax. Internet e-mail address: Elke.Ursin@FLHealth.gov Fax#: 850-487-0864 X. PROPRIETARY INFORMATION Vendors must indicate which portions, if any of the information being provided are proprietary or confidential by marking each page upon which such information appears. Failure to do so will result in all information submitted being subject to public disclosure in accordance with Florida Statute Chapter 119, Public Records. The information requested may be used to develop specifications for a solicitation. XI. VENDOR COSTS Vendors are responsible for all costs associated with the preparation, submission, and any potential meeting expenses to discuss this Request for Information. The State of Florida, Department of Health, or Bureau of Environmental Health will not be responsible for any vendor related costs associated with responding to this request.