Opportunity Overview
Comagine Health, lead organization for the Washington State Health Care Authority (HCA) Washington Community Information Exchange initiative, issued the Washington Community Information Exchange (WA CIE) Infrastructure Request for Proposal on September 14, 2026. The procurement seeks a qualified vendor to provide, implement, maintain, and operate a configurable, pre-existing statewide platform for secure health and social-service information exchange. Comagine states that a proven commercially available solution is preferred, with SaaS preferred but not mandatory.
Budget and Deadline
The RFP establishes annual funding ceilings of $3,400,000 for CY2027, $3,400,000 for CY2028, and $3,500,000 per year for CY2029 through CY2031. These are annual ceilings rather than guaranteed expenditures, and future funding and renewals remain contingent. Proposals are due October 23, 2026 at 4:00 p.m. Pacific Time (PT). Questions and clarification requests are due October 9, 2026 at 4:00 p.m. Pacific Time (PT). No notice of intent is required.
Core Platform Requirements
The selected solution must support statewide interoperability across healthcare and social services, care coordination, closed-loop referrals, secure portal access, system-to-system integration, client identity and record management, consent, identity and access management, reporting and analytics, and resource-directory functionality. The RFP specifically contemplates FHIR, HL7, and Gravity Project social-determinants-of-health interoperability.
Mandatory Qualification and Security Gates
Responsiveness is pass/fail. Offerors must satisfy all mandatory requirements in Submittal Form A, including three relevant business references for contracts performed within the last five years, and must accept the non-negotiable WaTech contractual requirements in Submittal Form E. The contractor must pass the HCA/WaTech Security Design Review before HCA data sharing and deployment. Before MVP launch, the contractor must provide current HITRUST and SOC 2 certifications plus required vulnerability-scan and penetration-testing reports, with continuing security evidence as required by the RFP.
Evaluation
Evaluation totals 1,000 points: Experience and Qualifications 100; Technical Understanding and Approach 150; Program, Project, and Product Management 100; Demonstration and Interview, including key personnel, 350; and Cost Proposal 300. The cost score uses the stated formula of lowest evaluated cost divided by the offeror’s evaluated cost, multiplied by 300. The initial term is 24 months, with up to three one-year renewals.
Submission and Communication Control
Proposals must be emailed to wacie@comagine.org using the subject line WA CIE RFP Proposal - [Organization Name]. Required forms are submitted as PDFs, the Cost Proposal is separate, required forms must be signed, compressed files are prohibited, and the total email plus attachments may not exceed 35 MB. Comagine’s email timestamp controls timeliness.
Procurement communications must be directed exclusively through Comagine Health’s designated WA CIE procurement channel. The RFP warns that unauthorized contact with HCA, state agencies, advisory or evaluation participants, or community partners may result in disqualification.
N9+ / QC Direct-Vendor Analysis
This is a legitimate direct-vendor health IT procurement and is strategically relevant to interoperability and connected-care infrastructure. N9+ prime-bid qualification is not yet cleared. Before any proposal work, bid claim, or issuer contact, Atlas must verify the mandatory commercial-solution maturity, three qualifying reference contracts, required senior interoperability personnel, WaTech compliance, HITRUST and SOC 2 readiness, required security-testing evidence, statewide PHI/PII-scale operational capability, and delivery capacity within the published annual ceilings. QC Healthcare or applicant outreach is not the pathway for this procurement.
Official Sources
Comagine Health WA CIE procurement page; official WA CIE RFP; Washington HCA WA CIE program page.