UNIVERSITY OF MISSISSIPPI Notice of Proposed Sole Source Purchase #ITSS 501

Description: Commodity or commodities to be purchased (manufacturer, model, description): Virtual Patient Education The need to be fulfilled by this item(s) and why it is the only one that can meet the specific needs of the department: The Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders seeks to purchase a web-based educational platform that delivers live adult medical patient encounters. The platform should provide patient contact and direct supervision for students to develop clinical reasoning, assessment, diagnosis, treatment planning, documentation, and intervention skills with patients. The platform will support competency-based education and help prepare students for professional practice. The product must provide live speech-language pathology-specific clinical patient encounters allowing students to provide assessment, diagnosis, treatment planning, intervention, and clinical decision-making with American-Speech-Language-Hearing Association aligned supervision and clinical hour reporting. It must provide patient matching and scheduling, align with speech-language pathology educational standards and competencies, while providing services via a HIPAA-compliant platform. Virtual Patient Education (VPE) is uniquely designed for speech-language pathology education and provides clinical opportunities for students. The platform allows students to complete telehealth assessments, formulate diagnoses, make recommendations, provide intervention, and receive feedback on clinical decisions. VPE provides a variety of clinical opportunities for speech-language pathology education and is mapped to professional competencies and clinical training requirements. VPE provides the patient matching, scheduling, and supervision of students. VPE connects graduate SLP students with real adult patients with communication and/or swallowing disorders through live, supervised virtual clinical experiences. Name of company/individual selling the item and why that source is the only possible source that can provide the required item(s): Virtual Patient Education is the sole developer, distributor, or reseller of this program. It's specific combination of services and delivery model are unique and found in no other program. Why the amount to be expended for the commodity is reasonable: The proposed expenditure is reasonable because it provides access to a variety of live patient encounters with varying disorders at a cost significantly less than developing equivalent experiences internally and provides students with access to a broad range of clinical experiences. Efforts that the agency went through to obtain the best possible price: Pricing was obtained directly from the vendor and the price was negotiated based on purchasing only the licenses necessary to support enrolled students and faculty and has sought available academic pricing to ensure the most cost-effective acquisition.