Health Ability Pass: An Accessible Healthcare Gateway for Patients with Disabilities.

Abstract

Patients with disabilities can experience challenges in communicating their accessibility requirements in advance to hospitals and therefore clinicians may not always be aware of their required reasonable adjustments. In this paper we describe the HealthAbility Pass concept, which is based on the previously developed Authentibility Pass application. Authentibility Pass allows users with disabilities to communicate their authentication and accessibility requirements to organizations, thus ensuring that authentication is accessible. The findings from the market validation phase for Authentibility Pass are summarized and the application is presented. The focus of the paper is the preliminary designs of HealthAbility Pass that have resulted from collaborations with two National Health Service (NHS) Foundation Trusts in the United Kingdom (UK). The proposed HealthAbility Pass will comprise of an Android Application, database, web interface and Application Programming Interface (API). Patients will input their accessibility requirements into the application, which are then communicated using token-based authentication to hospitals. The accessibility requirements domains have been identified based on the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) developed by World Health Organization (WHO) and preliminary discussions with the NHS Foundation Trusts. The API will be designed so that HealthAbility Pass can interface with existing hospital database systems. The design and development considerations are discussed, as well as future phases of the development. It is anticipated that the development of HealthAbility Pass will increase the awareness of clinicians and hospital staff to the necessary reasonable adjustments, resulting in higher levels of patient satisfaction.