Online appointment booking, patient portal, remote consultations, administrative forms, test results… Digital services now play a central role in the care pathway. However, they do not always meet the needs of all users, particularly those with disabilities.
Why has digital accessibility become a major issue for healthcare institutions? What are the main difficulties encountered by patients? How can the accessibility of digital health services be concretely improved?
In this article, discover the challenges of digital accessibility in healthcare facilities and best practices for designing truly accessible journeys for everyone.
Digital accessibility means designing digital services that are usable by everyone, regardless of their physical, sensory, or cognitive abilities. In healthcare settings, this applies in particular to websites, patient portals, mobile applications, forms, PDF documents, and telehealth platforms. See detailed definition
Why does digital accessibility remain a challenge for healthcare organisations?
Why do some patients still encounter difficulties making appointments or accessing their results? What are the main obstacles faced in digital health pathways? Let's consider some examples of situations encountered among many others: Marie, 67, is dyslexic and doesn't understand how to fill out her appointment booking form. Thomas, who is visually impaired, uses a screen reader to check his lab results, but the lab's website only displays images, which are unreadable by his software. Léa, who uses a wheelchair, navigates with one hand on her tablet and finds it impossible to fill in certain fields that require multiple interactions.
People affected by the lack of’digital accessibility are not marginal. Almost a third of the French population could regularly come up against interfaces that have not been designed with them in mind. The result? Longer procedures, more drop-outs, and a digital divide that sometimes adds to the medical divide.
KEY FIGURES FOR DIGITAL ACCESSIBILITY IN FRANCE
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- Around 28 % of French people live with a lasting functional limitation (DREES - Le handicap en chiffres 2024)
- 43 % of the over 65s have difficulty using digital services. (IFOP)
- Accessibility statements on hospital websites are not provided as a matter of course, and compliance with 100% is, unfortunately, the exception rather than the rule. See also Monitoring compliance with digital accessibility obligations - Public hospitals sector
How can digital accessibility be improved in a healthcare facility?
An inaccessible device not only degrades the user experience. It can compromise access to medical information, delay treatment, or lead to errors in the care pathway. Beyond regulatory obligationsRGAA, accessibility is an issue of responsibility for healthcare facilities. So, how can digital accessibility in a healthcare facility be concretely improved? Here are three best practices to try:
Integrate digital accessibility from the design stage
Accessibility can always be implemented on an existing digital product, but this is often laborious and costly. The solution? Integrate accessibility from the outset.
Some hospitals are now naming an accessibility consultant from the outset of a digital project. Its role? To challenge design choices to take account of all uses.
- Including personas with disabilities in design workshops
- Include accessible user stories in each development sprint
- Allocate a specific budget for accessibility, not a «reserve if we have time».»
Testing services with patients
Automated accessibility audit tools are unreliable: they only detect 30 to 40% of accessibility issues. What about the remaining 60%? These only come to light in real-world situations, with real users. A few healthcare platforms are already working with patient associations to co-construct their interfaces.
- Set up a panel of testers with disabilities (visually impaired, motor impairment, cognitive impairment, etc.)
- Organise user test sessions at each key stage of the project
- Paying testers fairly for their expertise
- Document and prioritise their feedback in the same way as critical bugs
Training teams and developing a culture of accessibility
Digital accessibility only becomes second nature when it is accompanied by a change in culture. Designing a service based solely on one's own user experience often leads to unintentionally excluding some patients. Training allows teams to change their perspective, understand the diversity of uses, and naturally integrate universal design principles into their projects.
- Offering accessibility training for all professions
- Organise immersions: browse for an hour with a screen reader, use the site using only the keyboard
- Share internal case studies: «here's what didn't work and why».»
- Creating specific accessibility guidelines for the healthcare sector
Digital accessibility should not only be considered at the level of the establishment's website. It also concerns PDF documents, forms and all the digital procedures that are part of the patient journey.
Progressively, accessibility will become a design reflex rather than a last-minute adjustment.
Digital accessibility is above all an opportunity to improve the quality of healthcare journeys. By integrating the needs of all users from the outset, institutions create services that are simpler, more robust, and easier for all patients to use. Beyond regulatory compliance, it is a sustainable investment for a more inclusive and human-centric care experience.