⚕️ Designing Accessible Healthcare Websites

Good Morning. Today, May 17th, is World Hypertension Day—a day to raise awareness about preventing and managing hypertension.

Let's spread awareness, lower stress levels, and keep our blood pressure in the happy zone while diving into our newsletter this week!

DEEP DIVE
Handbook to Healthcare Website Accessibility

• Only 4.9 percent of the hospitals on the honor roll or the top hospital lists were WCAG 2.1 compliant.

• 80 percent of the hospitals were semi-compliant, and 16.7 percent were non-compliant.

Healthcare website accessibility tools and best practices help hospitals to up their accessibility game and design a compliant site for users. Here are three accessibility standards that healthcare websites need to follow to adhere to compliance laws and regulations.

Healthcare Accessibility Standards

1. ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act)

2. Section 508

3. WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines)

Read the complete guide on how to design an accessible healthcare website and best practices for the same here.

PULSE POINTS
Latest Breakthroughs This Week

Here’s the most important breakthroughs and advancements we spotted in the healthcare technology space this week.

• Artificial Intelligence: WakeMed Health is incorporating AI to streamline documentation for clinicians. By the end of 2024, three of WakeMed Health's acute care hospitals will implement Regard's AI technology that uses proprietary algorithms and AI to analyze clinical data, freeing up clinicians to spend more time interacting directly with patients.

• Healthcare Chatbots: Healthcare startup, Transcarent, is developing an artificial intelligence chatbot to help patients answer healthcare questions. The chatbot is going to be based on the same technology that ChatGPT runs on and aims to answer questions such as: "How much will I have to pay for this doctor's visit?" "What's my deductible?" and "Can you help me find a doctor?.

• Personalized Medicine: Epic is unveiling a personalized care data tool, aiming to offer physicians valuable patient insights. Utilizing Epic's Cosmos database, housing de-identified data from 246 million individuals, the tool promises personalized treatment insights and outcomes. Physicians can leverage the tool to compare a patient's medical history with similar cases in the database, facilitating more informed decision-making.

• Genomic EHR Integration: Mayo Clinic is integrating genetic data into EHRs for personalized treatment, part of its "omics" strategy focusing on rare diseases, genetic testing, and cell function analysis using AI. Data from its Tapestry genomics study will be accessible to clinicians via EHRs. Mayo Clinic is also developing AI algorithms to identify primary care patients for genetic testing.

• Remote Patient Care: Mass General Brigham has introduced a Home Hospital Emergency Care (HHEC) program, enabling patients to receive emergency or urgent care from the comfort of their homes. Patients can request referrals through their primary care providers, who assess their stability for home treatment. If approved, a nurse arranges a home visit, during which a paramedic conducts a physical exam while an emergency medicine physician participates virtually.

• Cybersecurity: The Biden administration plans to introduce cybersecurity mandates for hospitals that would be accompanied by free training for smaller facilities. The proposed rule could apply to all organizations that receive Medicare or Medicaid funding and would be followed by a public comment period. The White House intends to offer the free training to 1,400 small, rural hospitals in the coming weeks.

PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT
OneTouch EMR: An EMR By A Doctor For Doctors

This week, HealthTech Zen got in touch with Dr. Robert Abbate, Founder and CEO of OneTouch EMR, a top rated electronic medical records platform with intuitive workflows that physicians are already accustomed to.

What personal or professional experiences influenced creating OneTouch EMR?

I was a self taught programmer who had experience with my own web hosting company before starting with medical school. After getting out of residency in 2009, when I was looking to start my own practice, I came to the realization that the EHRs available in the market were difficult to use, not intuitive and charting was time consuming.

On top of this, the price tag involved in a lot of these systems was incredibly steep and it was a lot of money that the doctor would have to lay out to get started with the software platform which led to my journey of finding a better alternative.

How do you think OneTouch EMR addresses the problem you set out to solve?

Our motto lies in 3Fs – familiar, flexible and fast. The workflow is familiar, the doctor can understand it since its like we’re taught in medical school. It is flexible so that they can change it to suit their needs and the charting much faster allowing doctors to spend time interacting with patients rather than being glued to their computer screens.

How do you see digital healthcare evolving?

AI offers a great opportunity and we are currently looking at partnering with a company that can take notes and put it all together for the provider. This technology is certainly something we’re going to participate in the future.

Continue reading here.

DECODER
What Is Responsive Web Design In Healthcare?

Responsive web design in healthcare refers to designing and developing healthcare websites that automatically adjust their layout and content to provide an optimal viewing experience across various devices and screen sizes, including desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones.

It ensures that patients, caregivers, and healthcare professionals can access essential information and services seamlessly regardless of the device they are using.

Read about 7 incredibly effectivetive tips for responsive web design here.