Ever Health collaborates to increase access to digital medical services - #BHHMembersInitiatives

BHH member Ever Health in collaboration with the ONCE Foundation and SmartCity Cluster has rebuilt and certified its health platform as the first inclusive telemedicine platform with the aim of promoting telemedicine in a more accessible way (for all people), adapting its technology so that people with disabilities can easily acces to digital medical services. The final agreement is shown in the document which was signed by José Luis Martínez Donoso, general director of  ONCE Foundation; Mariano Barroso, honorary president of the SmartCity Cluster, and Rafael García, CEO of Ever Health.

This agreement establishes wide variety of measures so that disable people can access to our telemedicine service that has been developed in several phases. Following a diagnosis of universal accessibility carried out by the ONCE Foundation, Ever Health, a SmartCity Cluster partner, has focused its effort and put its entire team to work on redesigning the healthcare platform, which has been also developed internally by the company. In this process, and in order to achieve the usefulness and effectiveness as a change for the better we also count with the support and collaboration of the associative movement of people with disabilities, which has determined whether the patient experience was successful enough regarding accessibility to digital medical services for all people. During the opening of the Madrid Accessibility Week (MAW), held last June, some of the figures on disability in Spain were made public.

According to the Survey on disability, personal autonomy and situations of dependence, published by the National Statistics Institute (INE), there are 4.38 million people with disabilities, which represents around 10% of the population; six out of every ten are women (58.6%) and three out of every four people with disabilities are over 55 years of age (75.4%). According to WHO, the World Health Organisation, more than one billion people, or about 15% of the world's population, have some form of disability and their numbers have been increasing in recent years partly due to the fact of demographic trends and the growing prevalence of chronic conditions. People with disabilities have less access to health care services. In addition to the problems they come up with (encounter) in their daily lives when moving around in physical spaces or getting any transport (36.2%), the use of new information and communication technologies (ICT) results also as another constraint making more difficult for 39.4% of people aged 6 and over to use them, according to data from the INE survey.

In this sense, and during the MAW, under the title 'Entrepreneurship with social impact on disability', Andrea Alzaga, the person in charge directing and presenting the project at Ever Health, listed some of the main changes made to the platform, which include designing shaded areas on buttons and the correct contrast of colours, text sizes, implementing tab control, labelling buttons and images and applying JAWS / NVDA screen reading tools, among other previous changes that favour access and efficiency during consultations; giving control to the healthcare professional during the video consultation or including subtitles and simultaneous translation into other languages. Ever Health has opted for a healthcare model based on medicine with value and aimed at different types of patients, in order to achieve a real democratisation of health. With the possibility of incorporating technology into any platform, promoting better access and greater diagnostic capacity. In short, putting the protagonists, patients and healthcare professionals, at the centre.

The digital medical services company had already made some optimisations to its platform during this period of pandemic, with changes in video technology, adapted to achieve greater efficiency and empower patients and healthcare professionals, thus complying with its pillars of Accessibility, Information Security and Quality of Care. Currently there are still many barriers to the use of digital medical services and must comply with the commitment to be developed for all people, regardless of the limitations or digital capabilities they may have. At Ever Health "we believe that technology should go unnoticed and be just the means to make health accessible, and that healthcare needs should not be left unattended for any reason of access", said Rafael García, CEO of Ever Health.

However, the lack of universal accessibility and proper adapted design prevents people with disabilities from using these tools. That is why all companies, and all actors must strive to create a more sustainable society and to bridge the digital divide, "especially for the elderly and/or people with disabilities or less technological capabilities", said García.

"We are very grateful to the ONCE Foundation, which has opened the doors of all its knowledge to make an inclusive platform a reality. It is very important to innovate and listen to those who are going to use the technology, health professionals and patients, groups such as the "senior" already have a model that allows the patient to access through a single click in a simple way.

Likewise, Ever Health, as a member of SmartCity Cluster, forms the ecosystem of companies oriented towards the creation of a smart urban model. In this sense, SmartCity Cluster supports the design and implementation of solutions of its associated companies, facilitating synergies with organizations such as ONCE Foundation for all projects related to improving people's quality of life.

The "Smart City" goes far beyond technology and its main objective is to improve the management of cities by optimizing the available resources to offer better public services to citizens.