How You Can Pivot For Section 508 Compliance in Your Healthcare Work
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What is Section 508 compliance?
"Section 508 compliance" refers to the conformity to Section 508 of the Workforce Rehabilitation Act of 1973 that requires federal organizations to ensure that the information and communication technology (ICT) they develop, procure, maintain, or use allows federal employees with disabilities as well as people with disabilities who are members of the public to have access to and use of information and data comparable to those who do not have disabilities, unless doing so would impose an undue burden on the organization.
Additionally, all federally financed programs, including healthcare services, have to adhere to Section 508 compliance requirements. The importance of adhering to Section 508 compliance requirements was given impetus when COVID-19 catalyzed change in healthcare. This was when significant efforts were made toward new ways of thinking about common and everyday occurrences to access primary and preventive healthcare.
Section 508 compliance within the healthcare ecosystem
COVID-19 encouraged healthcare providers to start or expand the provision of services through digital means such as websites and mobile applications. Healthcare digital tools expanded care delivery for providers beyond the hospital exam rooms. Non-acute healthcare visits for many conditions were implemented virtually during the pandemic to reduce the risks of exposure for patients and healthcare providers.
This upsurge in the use of digital tools to deliver healthcare opened up the healthcare sector to Section 508 scrutiny because conformance to Section 508 compliance requirements was the surest way the digital healthcare services would be accessible to people with disabilities in comparable ways they were to people without disabilities.
Digital health has now evolved into a broad field encompassing electronically captured data, along with technical and communications infrastructure and applications in the healthcare ecosystem. Revolutionary advances in digital health are transforming health, medicine, and biomedical science in phenomenal ways and redefining and re-engineering the tools needed to create a healthier future for everyone.
Developments such as cloud computing, artificial intelligence, machine learning, blockchain, digitally mediated diagnostics and treatment, telehealth, and consumer-facing mobile health applications are now routinely used in self-management, healthcare, and biomedical science. These developments promise to drive earlier diagnoses and interventions, improve health outcomes, and support more engaged patients.
Ongoing and accelerated progress is being made to fully realize the vision of a learning health system. In the digital age, digital health can and should act as a "force multiplier" of interventions to combat barriers to the creation and support of the health of every individual, including people with disabilities.
If you are a healthcare provider, you should become an active participant in advancing prospects and practices that promote accessible healthcare for all people. This can best be achieved through deliberate pivoting toward Section 508 compliance in your healthcare work.
Ways to pivot for Section 508 compliance in your healthcare work
Here are ways you can pivot toward Section 508 compliance in your healthcare work so that you can conform to the Section 508 compliance requirements:
- Prioritizing Section 508 compliance testing
The best way to pivot toward Section 508 compliance in your healthcare work is to prioritize Section 508 compliance testing for your healthcare digital assets like websites and mobile applications. You should ensure that accessibility testing for Section 508 compliance in your work is faster, simpler, and more effective in delivering your intentions.
If your healthcare services are provided through a website, you should prioritize 508 compliance for the website to make it accessible to users with disabilities. This will help it gain more traffic and conversions. To pivot for Section 508 compliance, you should ensure that before any content on your website is made public, it undergoes Section 508 website compliance testing.
- Facilitation of accessible off-site patient management through telemedicine
If you have digital tools that collect data and support your interventions outside the clinical setting, ensure you offer meaningful opportunities to identify the associated accessibility risks so as to cultivate effective engagement with all patients.
If you use consumer-facing apps and clinical monitors that actively or passively collect data, use them to serve as early warning systems for accessible disease prevention and management.
- Partner with a company that has extensive experience in 508 compliance
You don’t want to spend time building Section 508-compliant digital properties or adding accessibility to your existing healthcare digital assets only to find out that you used the wrong strategy. That is why finding a partner like ADACP who has the knowledge and experience to support your accessibility goal is critical.
A good Section 508 compliance partner will help you understand how to monitor the accessibility of your healthcare work, support you in creating accessibility statements, and assist you in learning how tracking feedback from users of your services is handled.
- Identify benefits that act as a sweet spot for your drive toward 508 compliance
You need to identify specific benefits that motivate your determination to achieve 509-accessibility as you attempt to make your healthcare work compliant with Section 508 compliance requirements. You'll find that complying with Section 508 can have a noticeable and advantageous influence on your user base, which is advantageous to your healthcare business as a whole.
Some of the biggest gains you will notice after improving the accessibility of your healthcare include reaching more customers, improving your social vision, avoiding unnecessary litigation, reinforcing your brand, and having products and services that appeal to people with disabilities.
Don’t risk your healthcare work not being Section 508 compliant
Addressing accessibility for your healthcare digital resources will make a significant positive difference for your business. Any day you don’t act toward 508 accessibility is a day you risk legal trouble. You don’t want to take that chance.
For assistance on how you can pivot for Section 508 in your healthcare work, contact us by calling (626) 486-2201 or scheduling a consult. At ADACP, we are well equipped to help out with your Section 508 compliance testing through our extensive 508 expertise and accessibility-focused support team, which can simplify the process for you while helping to control costs.
Our operational team will take care of all the technical components of your Section 508 compliance, especially where accuracy is critical to ensuring your entire healthcare work is 508 compliant and usable by everybody, including people with disabilities.
Our team will guide you through the 508 compliance directions as well as help in the coordination of efforts to be 508 compliant while keeping your business goals in mind.
What is Section 508 compliance?
"Section 508 compliance" refers to the conformity to Section 508 of the Workforce Rehabilitation Act of 1973 that requires federal organizations to ensure that the information and communication technology (ICT) they develop, procure, maintain, or use allows federal employees with disabilities as well as people with disabilities who are members of the public to have access to and use of information and data comparable to those who do not have disabilities, unless doing so would impose an undue burden on the organization.
Additionally, all federally financed programs, including healthcare services, have to adhere to Section 508 compliance requirements. The importance of adhering to Section 508 compliance requirements was given impetus when COVID-19 catalyzed change in healthcare. This was when significant efforts were made toward new ways of thinking about common and everyday occurrences to access primary and preventive healthcare.
Section 508 compliance within the healthcare ecosystem
COVID-19 encouraged healthcare providers to start or expand the provision of services through digital means such as websites and mobile applications. Healthcare digital tools expanded care delivery for providers beyond the hospital exam rooms. Non-acute healthcare visits for many conditions were implemented virtually during the pandemic to reduce the risks of exposure for patients and healthcare providers.
This upsurge in the use of digital tools to deliver healthcare opened up the healthcare sector to Section 508 scrutiny because conformance to Section 508 compliance requirements was the surest way the digital healthcare services would be accessible to people with disabilities in comparable ways they were to people without disabilities.
Digital health has now evolved into a broad field encompassing electronically captured data, along with technical and communications infrastructure and applications in the healthcare ecosystem. Revolutionary advances in digital health are transforming health, medicine, and biomedical science in phenomenal ways and redefining and re-engineering the tools needed to create a healthier future for everyone.
Developments such as cloud computing, artificial intelligence, machine learning, blockchain, digitally mediated diagnostics and treatment, telehealth, and consumer-facing mobile health applications are now routinely used in self-management, healthcare, and biomedical science. These developments promise to drive earlier diagnoses and interventions, improve health outcomes, and support more engaged patients.
Ongoing and accelerated progress is being made to fully realize the vision of a learning health system. In the digital age, digital health can and should act as a "force multiplier" of interventions to combat barriers to the creation and support of the health of every individual, including people with disabilities.
If you are a healthcare provider, you should become an active participant in advancing prospects and practices that promote accessible healthcare for all people. This can best be achieved through deliberate pivoting toward Section 508 compliance in your healthcare work.
Ways to pivot for Section 508 compliance in your healthcare work
Here are ways you can pivot toward Section 508 compliance in your healthcare work so that you can conform to the Section 508 compliance requirements:
- Prioritizing Section 508 compliance testing
The best way to pivot toward Section 508 compliance in your healthcare work is to prioritize Section 508 compliance testing for your healthcare digital assets like websites and mobile applications. You should ensure that accessibility testing for Section 508 compliance in your work is faster, simpler, and more effective in delivering your intentions.
If your healthcare services are provided through a website, you should prioritize 508 compliance for the website to make it accessible to users with disabilities. This will help it gain more traffic and conversions. To pivot for Section 508 compliance, you should ensure that before any content on your website is made public, it undergoes Section 508 website compliance testing.
- Facilitation of accessible off-site patient management through telemedicine
If you have digital tools that collect data and support your interventions outside the clinical setting, ensure you offer meaningful opportunities to identify the associated accessibility risks so as to cultivate effective engagement with all patients.
If you use consumer-facing apps and clinical monitors that actively or passively collect data, use them to serve as early warning systems for accessible disease prevention and management.
- Partner with a company that has extensive experience in 508 compliance
You don’t want to spend time building Section 508-compliant digital properties or adding accessibility to your existing healthcare digital assets only to find out that you used the wrong strategy. That is why finding a partner like ADACP who has the knowledge and experience to support your accessibility goal is critical.
A good Section 508 compliance partner will help you understand how to monitor the accessibility of your healthcare work, support you in creating accessibility statements, and assist you in learning how tracking feedback from users of your services is handled.
- Identify benefits that act as a sweet spot for your drive toward 508 compliance
You need to identify specific benefits that motivate your determination to achieve 509-accessibility as you attempt to make your healthcare work compliant with Section 508 compliance requirements. You'll find that complying with Section 508 can have a noticeable and advantageous influence on your user base, which is advantageous to your healthcare business as a whole.
Some of the biggest gains you will notice after improving the accessibility of your healthcare include reaching more customers, improving your social vision, avoiding unnecessary litigation, reinforcing your brand, and having products and services that appeal to people with disabilities.
Don’t risk your healthcare work not being Section 508 compliant
Addressing accessibility for your healthcare digital resources will make a significant positive difference for your business. Any day you don’t act toward 508 accessibility is a day you risk legal trouble. You don’t want to take that chance.
For assistance on how you can pivot for Section 508 in your healthcare work, contact us by calling (626) 486-2201 or scheduling a consult. At ADACP, we are well equipped to help out with your Section 508 compliance testing through our extensive 508 expertise and accessibility-focused support team, which can simplify the process for you while helping to control costs.
Our operational team will take care of all the technical components of your Section 508 compliance, especially where accuracy is critical to ensuring your entire healthcare work is 508 compliant and usable by everybody, including people with disabilities.
Our team will guide you through the 508 compliance directions as well as help in the coordination of efforts to be 508 compliant while keeping your business goals in mind.
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