The power of digital accessibility in advancing health equity

In order to help improve health outcomes among historically marginalized communities, we need to understand the unique challenges of each community we serve. Every day, CVS Health looks for ways to help eliminate disparities and increase equitable access to care as part of our health equity strategy. Digital accessibility, which is digital content and technologies designed so that people of all abilities can use, view and understand it, is an important part of this work.?

I recently sat down with Jennison Asuncion , Head of Accessibility Engineering Evangelism at LinkedIn and a member of the CVS Health National Health Equity Advisory Board, and Monica Goel, Executive Director of Digital Accessibility at CVS Health, for a conversation about the power of digital accessibility. We discussed how this modality helps ensure people living with disabilities have access to the care and resources they need to live as healthy as possible. Here’s what they had to say:?

Q: What should we be thinking about when it comes to advancing health equity for people living with disabilities???

Jennison Asuncion: Nearly 42.5 million people in the United States are living with a disability. All of us will experience a disability in some form or another during our lifetime. As we think about and design new technology, it’s important to remember that individuals living with disabilities are not a small group of people. They make up the largest minority group in the world.??

Q: What are the biggest barriers that people living with disabilities face when accessing care, and how can CVS Health help address these barriers???

Monica Goel: Many times, the biggest barrier occurs when people do not understand or consider what individuals living with disabilities need. Some health care services do not account for serving this community, which contributes to creating health disparities.??

So, what can we do to make sure our care is accessible? The first step is to make sure we listen to our customers and understand their health care needs and challenges. We know prescription management and medication adherence can be particularly difficult for patients with visual impairments or those who cannot read a standard print label. That’s why we developed Spoken Rx, a feature on the CVS Pharmacy app that reads prescription information aloud via radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology. It’s an important aid for patients with complete blindness, significant visual impairment, literacy or language difficulties, or dyslexia. It is available at no extra cost to patients and allows for a greater level of privacy, safety, and independence for our customers.??

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Q: Can you share what's new on the digital accessibility front at LinkedIn??

?Jennison Asuncion: Late last year, LinkedIn implemented a Microsoft technology called the Immersive Reader. This allows members to listen to content read aloud to them or customize the text, such as with a different color, so it's easier to read. People living with print-based disabilities, dyslexia and other learning disabilities make up a large group among individuals living with disabilities. We installed Immersive Reader on our long-form posts and newsletters, and that’s something we’re excited to have rolled out. We have also published tutorials for members who use screen reading software on how to accomplish key tasks on LinkedIn.??

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Q: What lessons have you learned while bringing this work to life at LinkedIn???

Jennison Asuncion: It’s so important to have leaders across different lines of business talk about the importance of accessibility and disability. This helps normalize the conversation and employees begin to automatically think about it. It’s about setting the tone and making sure that everyone understands it’s a priority.??

It’s important to engage the end users, too. We need to include people living with disabilities in research, marketing studies and testing. But the reality is, prioritizing progress over perfection is the way forward. We’d love every website to be accessible at launch, but in this world where new content is being developed every week, the important thing is to have the right processes in place to adapt.?

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Q: What are you excited about in digital accessibility at CVS Health??

?Monica Goel: There is so much innovation happening at CVS Health. We are looking at how generative AI can make content easier to understand, including making sure our images are informative and that individuals with vision disabilities have the right context to understand them. We are committed to using AI in a safe and responsible way.?

We’re also furthering our efforts to make accessibility resources and training available to the broader community. Our leadership is committed to making things open source.??

We’re continuing to broaden our work by thinking about an inclusive persona, so we design processes that work for any individual no matter their circumstances. For example, if we have a patient’s information and know their preferred pharmacy, we can notify people with “next best actions” such as notifying them that a vaccine appointment is available on a specific day and time. They can respond with a touch on their phone. That's an intelligent system that can be beneficial to any person, but especially for someone living with a disability. It removes the steps when making an appointment that can serve as a barrier to accessing care.??

We’re thinking about how we can create the best experience for every person we serve which helps us deliver on our purpose to build a world of health around every consumer.?

Thank you to all our CVS Health colleagues for their commitment to advancing health equity and for helping to make health care accessible to every person we serve. Through our Community Resources Group, CapAbilities, our colleagues increase awareness of the important role that customers and colleagues living with disabilities play in our workforce, workplace and marketplace.??

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