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deepwell gaming therapy

Are games the future of mental health treatment?

  • min read
    • In Kaspersky's Bring on the Future series, we meet people and businesses worldwide who are changing things for the better. One of the biggest challenges for mental health treatment is reaching more people who need it. Some don't realize they're mentally unwell. Others can't access therapy because of costs or waiting lists. Many don't like the idea of discussing their problems with a stranger. DeepWell DTx aims to change that by bringing mental health therapy to the masses – especially hard-to-reach patients – through gaming. Co-founders Ryan Douglas and Mike Wilson speak about why games are a great way to treat mental health issues – if you get the formula right. Why did you decide to start DeepWell now? We found that mental health came up constantly in our respective careers – Mike in gaming and Ryan in creating medical devices and therapies. We saw many people were missing the resources or help to treat disorders like anxiety and depression. We often talked about what we could do to address this unmet need, then the deepening mental health crisis alongside the Covid-19 pandemic pushed us to start DeepWell. What's DeepWell's philosophy? We put games and game developers first. There is no treatment without player engagement, so therapy must be embedded in a fun and engaging game. How has your team of 40 experts across gaming, science and mental health helped your success? Our diverse team is made up of professionals at the top of their fields. Neurosurgeons, lawyers, creative strategists and others all work in service of the game developer. Without the game's fun, there is no therapy. What can players expect might change after playing your games? Our games aim to help players improve their physical and emotional functioning. After playing consistently, you should notice greater resilience and capability to handle the stress and anxiety of daily life. How has gaming supported your mental health? Which games do you recommend for therapy? At the moment we're focused on virtual reality (VR,) using games like Pistol Whip and motivational fitness apps like Supernatural for leisure and exercise. These games have especially helped during the pandemic for getting off the couch and quelling anxiety with movement. We've also found immersive fantasy games like Lorne Lanning's Oddworld and American McGee's Alice, role-playing games (RPGs) like Wizard101 and world-builders like Minecraft therapeutic for us and our families. Any game that takes you out of your head has potential benefits. Who are your customers? Are businesses investing in these games, such as the healthcare industry, or any business hoping to improve employee wellbeing? We're reaching out directly to folks with mental health issues. We also partner with game developers, publishers and platforms to create new games or repurpose games that are already therapeutic. We hope our games will make mental health treatment accessible to a broader audience. Serious games have evolved as a genre in recent decades, especially in academia and healthcare. Do you align with it? We are not serious games. We rely on the power of play and engagement that good games provide. While we see the value of other approaches, this is what makes us different. How will your FDA games certification project benefit the industry and gamers? Being able to make claims and develop games with therapeutic intent, and to have players understand the therapeutic benefit of engaging, will change game development and the audience games can reach. Can you tell us about games you plan to launch? The first game we're working on focuses on addressing stress, anxiety and symptoms of depression on a VR platform. More to come closer to launch. How will you keep your products secure and safe for users? We closely follow the FDA and HIPAA guidelines and requirements for data management in prescription games. What will success look like for DeepWell? Widespread recognition of the power of game developers to develop Immersive Medicine and being able to produce many therapeutic options for a range of cultures and mental health conditions.
heathcare emotet

How could hospitals be better protected from cyberattacks?

  • min read
    • "In wartime, a red cross on a hospital's roof protects it from bombing. But in cyberwar, there's no convention to protect hospitals," says Professor Dr. Harald Dormann, Head Emergency Room Physician at Germany's Klinikum Fürth hospital. With thousands of networked computers and medical devices crucial to patient care, Klinikum Fürth's quick thinking turned a malware attack into an unlucky day for cybercriminals. Tomorrow Unlocked's video, Malware: A New Virus in the Hospital, tracks how Klinikum Fürth's actions stopped the ransomware attack in its tracks and likely saved lives. How do cybercriminals use malware against hospitals? The first hint of an attack was when Klinikum Fürth's IT support team started receiving strange emails from users – a hallmark of the dangerously effective malware Emotet. Emotet also uses Wi-Fi networks to spread. If infected, a wirelessly connected device scans nearby networks and infects other devices using a password list. Klinikum Fürth found 65 systems infected with computer viruses and malware. Thanks to acting fast, they isolated the malware before it encrypted data and held it for ransom – usually the Emotet attack's goal. Malware is common. From March to June 2021, Kaspersky software blocked 1.7 billion malware attacks. It's also becoming more dangerous, with cybercriminals using particularly damaging malware like Emotet for fraud and ransomware attacks. The hospital's surgical cyberdefense Professor Dr. Dormann recounts how hospital staff stepped up when they learned of the cyberattack. "When our CEO told us what had happened, some were nervous. Some were pale. But all were motivated to act." First, they began diverting new patients to nearby hospitals. Then they disconnected the hospital from the internet to reduce the risk of infecting other institutions. They put together taskforces of clinicians, administrators and IT staff to analyze the problem. Then, prioritizing the most critical medical devices, they checked for malfunctions. Extra staff were brought in to help switch to paper-based working. How to stop and prevent malware attacks Klinikum Fürth's story offers many lessons. Their fast response shows why organizations should plan what they'll do if attacked. Cybersecurity education can help staff get wiser to threats like Emotet's use of spoofed emails. Strong passwords help defend against malware that uses Wi-Fi networks to spread. Read more about how to prevent and reduce the impact of ransomware attacks.
digital health report

How has COVID-19 changed medicine’s view of digital health?

  • min read
    • It's often said that necessity is the mother of invention. The last few years in digital health also show necessity is also the mother of adoption and acceleration. In a recent Deloitte survey, physician leaders reported increases in virtual appointments for nearly all types of care. For chronic condition management, appointments increased ninefold. In the same survey, more than half said their organization's virtual health strategy changed significantly in response to the pandemic. Telehealth is being adopted worldwide, from the UK's Babylon Health, to Doctolib in France, to China's Ping An Good Doctor. And it's been necessity – like quarantine regulations, contamination risks and growing consultation requests – driving the acceleration. The COVID effect Although the healthcare industry has historically been slow to adopt digital tech, the 'COVID effect' put telemedicine front and center for patients and providers. Kaspersky's 2021 report, Telehealth take-up: The risks and opportunities, confirms healthcare is ready to embrace digital. More than 90 percent of providers use some form of telehealth, such as video consultation, mobile app or remote patient monitoring. Interestingly, only half of providers used telehealth before COVID-19. The same report finds more than one in three, or 37 percent, in the medical community think tech could replace doctors by 2042. Is this fear of AI replacing humans or optimism about how fast digital technologies are advancing? At the same time, projected digital health adoption varies across regions. When will we see AI doctors and psychologists? Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, Africa and Russia are most optimistic about digital doctors. Around half of healthcare professionals in the Asia-Pacific and Middle East regions think digital technologies could replace doctors in the next 20 years, but only around one in three in North America and Europe. These differences may arise from varying public perceptions of digital health. In China in 2019, publicized events in which digital technologies assisted in animal operations, minimally invasive heart surgery and remote brain surgery may have helped public and medical trust in digital health. In medical communities across regions, 40 percent predict there'll soon be digital replacements for psychologists. This may be because of the relative maturity of related technologies like text analysis and natural language processing (NLP.) What will most drive value in healthcare? Kaspersky's report found providers in the Middle East, Asia-Pacific and Latin America think AI and big data will be the biggest driver of value for healthcare by 2045. But North America and Russia think it will be telemedicine and mobile apps. Wearables are valued similarly across regions. These differences might be explained by differences in how regions innovate. In the US, it tends to within an industry: Uber and Lyft for ride sharing and AirBnB for travel. In the Middle East and China on the other hand, super-apps integrate services across industries, such as China's Meituan, providing everything from concert tickets to hotel booking to food delivery. Another factor could be government and business emphasis on AI, machine learning and data analytics. In 2019, I spoke at the AI Everything summit in Dubai, positioned as the largest AI conference in the world. The general level of interest in technologies like AI and uptake in other industries may influence how strongly healthcare professionals and patients welcome these. Taking advantage of digital health optimism How can we use the increased confidence in digital health to accelerate development? I suggest four approaches. 1.    Enhance rather than replace experts Digital health best works side-by-side with physicians, nurses and other care providers. For example, image recognition by machine learning can better detect some cancers. This could free up oncologists and radiologists from routine image-reading to focus on treatment. 2.    Carefully manage and govern data Health data is personal and sensitive. We must pay attention to how we collect and use it. In Kaspersky's survey, over half (52 percent) of frontline telemedicine providers said patients had declined video consultations over privacy and other data concerns. But healthcare systems can also use patient data to improve outcomes and reduce costs. We've seen encouraging results from using big data to improve clinical trial design. 3.    Improve data security across all stakeholders In Kaspersky's survey, around a third of healthcare organizations said they'd had cybersecurity issues, and 30 percent had had data breaches from virtual consultations. Causes likely include outdated IT systems, poor security and not following protocols. We must keep improving security technologies and practices across all stakeholders, like government agencies, insurers and nursing homes. 4.    Encourage collaboration To realize the potential of digital health, we need broader collaboration. To facilitate data sharing, we must share investment to build better data infrastructure and fairly distribute value gained from data. These negotiations will be critical to advancing data-related collaboration in healthcare. The healthcare sector showed its agility and solidarity throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. The ramp-up of telehealth increased provider and patient optimism around digital health. Let's retain the momentum and build healthcare's capability to use technology securely and creatively to improve knowledge, efficiency and patient care.
drones emergency response

Will drones be the next tech to transform healthcare?

  • min read
    • It was the longest five seconds of Dr. Shaf Keshavjee's life. On a late afternoon in 2021, he waited on the rooftop of Canada's Toronto General Hospital, watching a drone crest the horizon and hover above its landing pad. "It seemed to hover forever," says the director of the Toronto Lung Transplant Program. "In medicine, you do many stressful things with unknown outcomes. You're trained to handle it, because you have complete control of the situation," he tells me. "But this was different. I had to trust technology out of my control." The lungs, filled with oxygen and set at the correct temperature, traveled hundreds of feet in the air for nearly a mile over busy downtown Toronto. It took six minutes. This breakthrough flight was another rung on the ladder of a new application for drones in healthcare: Delivering organs quickly and efficiently for life-saving surgery. But at each rung, there are challenges – like responsible management of the crowded airspace of a new kind of highway. Flying medical supplies to kidneys and corneas Drones, unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) were once regarded mainly as a hobby. But they're now poised to reach a market value of 40 billion US dollars by 2027. Some hope autonomous aircraft like MightyFly will soon deliver goods to shoppers. Hunter Kosar, owner of US shipping company Twisted Nail Broker Services, noted a niche hybrid-electric, vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) autonomous aircraft could focus on transporting time-sensitive supplies like organs. "Organs are light, expensive and needed fast. Healthcare would pay a lot to receive a heart for transplant in 90 minutes instead of 4 hours." In 2019, Zipline crafted a fleet of drones to carry medical supplies to Ghana's remote areas. In 2021, UPS Flight Forward achieved a US first by drone-delivering COVID-19 vaccines in North Carolina. To healthcare specialists, drones are an obvious next step for delivering organs beyond the usual helicopter or plane. In 2020 drone start-up MissionGO Unmanned Systems' medical cargo branch partnered with Nevada Donor Network to successfully deliver kidneys and corneas. The 10-mile (16 km) kidney delivery was the longest organ delivery flight in drone history. The organs were intentionally unusable as the flight's purpose was research. Lab technicians took a graft of the delivered kidney and found no negative effects from the flight. "The organs didn't degrade," says MissionGO CEO Scott Plank. Plank is encouraged by healthcare working with airspace "to solve a major problem, produce a lower carbon footprint and foster a more efficient supply chain." MissionGO is one of the few drone firms with US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) certification to deliver human organs for transplant. It all began at University of Maryland in 2019 when a university team used a drone to deliver kidneys to a patient 2.8 miles (4.5km) away within 10 minutes. University of Maryland Medical Center's Dr. Joseph Scalea recognized he was onto something monumental and, within months, co-founded MissionGO. While organ delivery by drone is in its infancy, a concern nags enthusiasts like Dr. Keshavjee. "There must be a focus on safety and compliance. What will happen when drones take to the skies and start running into each other?" Managing a new kind of highway "Call us the Google Maps for drones, but the roads don't exist yet," says Michael Healander. His Detroit-based start-up Airspace Link may be about to become the US air traffic control system for drones. Already FAA-approved to oversee low altitude flights, Airspace Link helps drone pilots know where they can fly, any temporary flight restrictions ahead and nearest airport locations. They also communicate with 2,700 US airports, alerting them to any drones coming into their airspace. They use more than 50 datasets, from building footprints and heights to helipad locations to hyperlocal weather. Healander says drones are the future of delivering organs safely and efficiently. He also foresees other medical uses for drone delivery. "Delivering prescriptions to people with mobility challenges or in rural areas," he suggests. "Blood samples have to go to a lab, so instead of a patient waiting days, the drone could deliver the samples and the patient receive results in hours." Next time you happen to catch sight of a drone careening across the sky, it might be more than a tech lover having fun with a new toy. You may be witnessing a seismic shift in how we deliver critical medical treatment to those most in need.
Lifelong wellness technology

How smart employers can use health tech for better business

  • min read
    • The pandemic has changed how we live and work. Public health has dominated national news. Organizations have accelerated their use of digital technologies. As successful vaccination worldwide starts to reduce COVID-19's worst impacts, life slowly returns to normal. Melissa Fogarty, Joint Head of Corporate, London at international law firm Clifford Chance said in 2020, "Resourcefulness, dexterity and tenacity are crucial for those who will come out of the crisis in good shape." We know physical isolation and frequent online meetings can strain employees' long-term physical and mental wellbeing. What can businesses do to ensure staff can do their best and reach their potential? Digital transformation in health and wellbeing tech may have the answer. The consumer wellbeing tech and healthcare divide "The world's largest single source of digital health compliance" ORCHA assesses and accredits the growing number of healthcare mobile apps. Recent consumer wearables like Apple Watch collect clinical-grade data useful for diagnosis and preventative healthcare. But at a recent Nordic Healthcare Conference, ORCHA's Chief Operating Officer, Tim Andrews, said, "Whilst there's been huge interest in digital health, this is often not matched with adoption and usage, particularly in areas that impact healthcare systems. The opportunity perhaps missed most often is the ability for digital health to be embedded into healthcare systems." Andrews seems to be suggesting health devices and mobile apps aren't yet a big part of public health services, but should be. I think there are two main reasons for this. First, data privacy and security: If personal health data gets into the wrong hands, it may lead to misselling of health services and insurer or employer discrimination. Second, possible litigation against developers of health and wellbeing devices and apps, around classification as a medical device and eligibility to be prescribed by medical practitioners. Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly part of public health triage and medical advice, online or over the phone, but wearable devices and mobile apps rarely give medical advice. Telehealth and privacy COVID-19 has changed our perceptions of healthcare data privacy. Before the pandemic, it was inconceivable for democratic nations to use track and trace technologies to monitor citizens. Although still contentious, it's meant acceptance of telehealth as a way of protecting others. Back in 2014 in the American Medical Association Journal of Ethics, Timothy Hale and Joseph Kvedar, said, "Concerns about the privacy and security of telehealth systems may adversely affect people's trust in telehealth and threaten the ability of these systems to improve the accessibility, quality and effectiveness of healthcare… but many people, especially the chronically ill, believe the benefits of telehealth outweigh the risks." They recognized that it's in the interests of all health stakeholders, from patients to employers, insurers to healthcare professionals, to use and encourage use of healthcare technologies. Wellness tech and preventative medicine Employers want healthy, motivated staff. Employee benefits packages often include private health insurance, which may attract employees, but don't usually include preventative healthcare. Staff ill-health, absences and reduced performance are a massive cost burden. The US National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion estimates 90 percent of the nation's associated 3.8 trillion US dollar costs are from mental and chronic health conditions. Also back in 2014, Sir Simon Stevens, former Head of UK's National Health Service (NHS) called obesity a "slow-motion car crash." He suggested we need new interventions to promote healthy eating and lifestyles to avoid serious health and financial problems in future. We're seeing moves in this direction. Singapore's Health Promotion Board launched its National Steps Challenge, giving away free step-tracking watches. Its Ministry of Health Transformation Office started Mindline, an AI-enabled portal offering tailored support with mental wellbeing. Mindline helps users identify and get help for underlying problems like domestic violence and financial strain, and gives healthy living advice alongside options for medical and talk therapies. Another example of a win-win ecosystem using technology and gamification is insurers like Vitality Life offering an Apple Watch to customers with benefits linked to healthy living data. How to use wellness tech in the workplace I see two main ways businesses can use health tech to give employees lifelong benefits and their business immediate results in reduced absenteeism and greater engagement. Telehealth devices and gamification are a win-win Telehealth devices include wearable tech that tracks health patterns, giving early warning of problems and advice. Rather than tracking employee health directly, HR departments can offer telehealth devices and apps with training as part of the benefits package: A win-win digital ecosystem. By working with health insurers and organizations like ORCHA, they can also help shape the lifestyle behaviors behind obesity and other chronic, avoidable conditions. Using gamification (game-orientated) strategies like those used in mobile apps can encourage employees to set health targets and form teams competing for the best improvements. Here are some good examples of the benefits of wellness gamification strategies. Italian games specialists Imaginary pioneered wellness technology within 'serious games.' Their flagship rehabilitation product Rehability helps people who've had strokes and other debilitating conditions recover at home under a clinician's remote supervision. It reduces the costs of care and, through gamification, encourages patients to comply with the clinician's advice, shortening their recovery times. Solutions like Rehability could be part of corporate health packages, helping staff improve physical and mental health at home or supporting recovery from conditions like Long Covid. Immersed in digital therapeutics Digital therapeutics involves using technology to give therapy for physical and mental health. It helps avoid or reduce the need for medication or surgery, and empowers people to manage their own health. There's growing use of virtual reality (VR) for stress management and treating other mental health problems. Organizations are starting to use VR headsets or other immersive technologies like 360-degree projectors to offer employees chill-out space. Spanish company BroomX pioneered affordable 360-degree projectors that have many uses, including digital therapeutics. Although originally designed for cultural and educational sites like schools and museums, research suggests immersive experiences may benefit mental health. At the 2021 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Broom X and hospital partners discussed how they've used immersive mindfulness therapies in hospitals to treat and prevent staff and patients with mental illness. What corporate leaders should do next Organizations wanting to harness the power of health tech for their employees have many ways to add physical and mental wellbeing technologies and apps to their people management strategy. What's right for each business comes down to their circumstances and what their people want. It's a fast-moving, high-growth area. Leaders must choose the right partners when selecting technologies for employee benefits packages. Big technology players like Apple, Google and Samsung are pitching hard with new devices and applications. The many health and wellbeing mobile apps available can feel like a jungle to navigate. It's worth discussing options with organizations like ORCHA that are there to evaluate independently. Organizations with an ethos of preventative healthcare, using technology and gamification to add value to their employee experience may see benefits in competitive advantage alongside healthier, more productive and motivated staff.
making technology accessible

How healthcare businesses can make their tech more accessible

  • min read
    • Tech advances in healthcare have benefited millions. From online doctor appointments to remote diagnosis aides like the digital stethoscope, digitalized medicine and telehealth has increased health access for many. But some groups are locked out of healthcare despite the digital healthcare revolution. Hospitals and clinics, and medical device developers and suppliers must be more aware that a good portion of the population can't use some new services, because their needs weren't considered in the design. I'm talking about the 15 percent of the global population with a disability – from learning disability to visual impairment to motor impairments and many other conditions. If people with disabilities can use these new technologies, they could benefit more than any other group. Accessible health tech doesn't happen by accident Imagine you're blind and have a chronic health condition, so you need ongoing doctor appointments. You'll be expected to organize much of this online, including registering on the clinic's portal, booking appointments and paying bills. If your appointment is in person, you may need to check in using an automated kiosk or speak to your doctor online using video conferencing. While these tasks are effortless for many people, they can be a barrier for those with disabilities. Cutting-edge technology too often leaves the most vulnerable behind. Medical devices should be tested with customers with a range of disabilities to make sure they can use them. Still, studies show patients with disabilities report many problems using medical devices and equipment. When accessibility is considered, it's often an afterthought rather than a requirement. Around the world, many countries have laws safeguarding the rights of people with disabilities. Ignoring these regulations is a risk for business and public institutions alike. Digital accessibility lawsuits are fast increasing. Examples of accessibility barriers in health tech Blood glucose meters Blood glucose meters or glucometers help people with diabetes track blood sugar levels to ensure they stay within a healthy range, usually by the user placing a drop of blood on a testing strip and reading the blood sugar level from a screen. That's easy unless you have, say, a tremor, lack of dexterity or low vision. Diabetes can cause sight loss, making impaired vision more common among people with the condition. Inaccessible equipment may force some diabetics to rely on others to help keep their conditions in check. This loss of independence can be frustrating: Relying on others may mean scheduling your life around them or extra costs for rides or aides. Pregnancy tests For many, a pregnancy test result is something they want to share with a partner or other people, but not always. What if you couldn't see the result and had to ask someone to read it for you? UK charity supporting those with sight loss RNIB has developed a prototype for a tactile pregnancy test which may one day be a mainstream product. Appointment check-in kiosks Nowadays, institutions and businesses offer digital kiosks for many tasks, like checking in for flights and ordering food. In healthcare, kiosks are especially popular for appointment check-ins. Protecting patient privacy is critical. More accessible kiosks would help people with disabilities maintain privacy while providing information a healthcare institution might need. Laura Miller, former co-chair of the kiosk accessibility committee for the Kiosk Manufacturers Association, says, "Without access to medical information, autonomy in viewing and updating personal healthcare facts and the right to medical record privacy, people with disabilities can't securely navigate their medical journey without help. Critical to an accessible healthcare experience is being able to privately listen thanks to a headphone jack and screen reader and being able to navigate and communicate information." Website and app accessibility A visually impaired patient may need to use different websites and online portals for healthcare-related tasks, like using review sites to research doctors or using online portals to get medical records. If these websites are not accessible, they would have to ask someone for help. Keyboard-only users (not everyone can use a mouse) may find it impossible to fill out a form or reveal roll-over content. A cognitively impaired person may be overwhelmed by huge blocks of text not broken up by headers. Someone with low vision or color blindness may not be able to see buttons or read text that contrasts poorly with background color. There are guidelines to follow to make websites, apps and PDF forms accessible. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) – an international organization seeking universal web access – developed the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) in consultation with disabled web users. These guidelines give technical criteria that make the web easier to use for people with many impairments. For example, using descriptive link text ensures those using a screen reader can understand where a link will lead them. Making calls to action and navigation links larger helps someone with reduced dexterity more easily use them. Although many of these guidelines are easy to follow when you know how, most websites don't follow basic web content accessibility guidelines. Online medical appointments Online appointments, sometimes called telehealth, skyrocketed during the pandemic. Though it won't replace in-person doctor visits, it's convenient and cost-effective, and many have chosen to keep using the service. It's even more important that people with disabilities can access online appointments because some face barriers leaving their homes, making in-person appointments hard. But if the remote appointment app or website doesn't work with screen readers, visually impaired people may not be able to use it without help. Telehealth is off the table for patients with a hearing impairment unless there are on-screen captions (subtitles.) How to start your accessibility journey What every company or organization must do to improve accessibility for patients, customers and clients is different, but here are some ways to get started. Automated accessibility testing A fast way to understand your digital content's accessibility is to run an automated scan for machine-detectable accessibility errors using a tool like ARC Monitoring. Google Lighthouse also has accessibility assessments among its features. Automated scanning identifies less than half of the barriers a person with disabilities may encounter online. You must manually audit to make sure you catch all problems. Manual accessibility auditing An accessibility audit is a manual review by an expert that finds WCAG failures only a human can identify. While any trained accessibility auditor should know the difference between accessibility 'box-ticking' and true accessibility, organizations like TPGi and Australia's Disability Accessibility Centre have auditors with the disabilities they're checking for barriers around, so could give you a more reliable and thorough picture. Ask for feedback While it's best to get feedback on a product or digital application during design and build, it's never too late to find out what users think. Ask for feedback from people with disabilities on where they're finding barriers, for example, by providing an accessible online form, email address or phone number for reporting an access barrier. Focus on the most crucial user journeys – the main things your users need your service to do. Observing users trying to get through these journeys, either in person or remotely, can be hugely informative. Bear in mind, voluntary feedback isn't enough to ensure a product is accessible. Not all customers want to or have time to tell you about barriers they face. Once your tech is accessible, maintain it Once your organization is at the point where its tech is reasonably accessible, you need to maintain the accessibility. Here's how. Decide accessibility is a must for every project Buy-in from stakeholders matters. Projects may need longer timelines for more quality assurance, developers may need training and it may cost more to ensure you're doing it right. Buy-in from senior leadership affects everything the organization does, from the culture to choosing vendors to your results. Build accessibility into product and service design The earlier in the design process you consider accessibility, the better. Your website is probably the biggest product you control, so if you're planning a redesign or adding something new, bake in accessibility considerations. You'll save time on a smoother launch and fewer remediations down the line. Monitor accessibility Digital assets are always changing. As you update websites and add new content, monitor for accessibility issues. Train employees in accessibility When you train employees in all divisions, not just developers, on what accessibility is and why it matters, it creates an inclusive culture. People start adding accessible features, code and tactics to projects, meaning better results and fewer fixes later. It may seem daunting to start an accessibility journey, but the rewards outweigh the obstacles. People with disabilities could gain much from healthcare's digital transformation, but tech designers must make sure we understand and commit to accessibility. There'll always be more to learn, but with forethought, we can design healthcare tech that meets more people's needs.
by Innovating leaders.
Innovative tech.
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Secure Futures magazine is your go-to business guide for opinions, trends and insight into the world of technology and cybersecurity. We help your business to bring on the future. Brought to you by Kaspersky, the global cybersecurity experts.

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