• Offering accessible health care by developing organizational knowledge, strengthening competencies, and updating or creating practices, processes and procedures that increase access.
• Complying with the Americans with Disabilities Act
Developing physical communication, and program access to facilitate offering “equally effective services” for people with disabilities and activity limitations.

• This includes getting to, into, and through facilities (accessible bus routes and stops, parking, entrances, elevators, waiting areas, exam and procedure rooms, and restrooms);
  
• Evaluating the accessibility of medical equipment including scales, examination and treatment tables, X-ray machines, scanners and other monitoring and diagnostic equipment.
• Identifying potential facility modifications necessary to ensure effective placement and use of accessible medical equipment.

 Providing model policies, procedures and process including:

• Service Animals
• Weight Measurement
• Lifting and Transferring Patients with Mobility Disabilities
• Accessible Equipment
• Communication Access: Auxiliary Aids and services such as alternative formats (Braille, large print, disks, audio) assistive listening devices, Sign Language interpreters, readers, assistance completing paperwork.
• Communication Assistance for Patients and Visitors who are Deaf, Hard-of- Hearing and have Speech Disabilities
• Accessible Sleeping Rooms
• Equipment Procurement, Planning and Replacement
• Planning for Continuing Program Assessment

Evaluating and enhancing communication access capacity (by providing content in methods that are understandable and usable by people with reduced or no ability to: see, hear, read, learn, move, speak, remember and understand. Offering health information in useable and understandable formats helps to reach people with a broad range of abilities, disabilities, ages, reading levels, learning styles, cultures, and native languages. It also promotes and improves health literacy.) Methods address:

• Public Information
• Printed Materials
• Web-Based Information
• Multimedia Products – films, video, etc
• Electronic Health Records
• Public Computer Workstations and Communication Devices
• Public Televisions

Patient satisfaction surveys - infusing physical, communication and program access ccontent into questions

Disability Literacy and Competency Training - curriculum development and delivery focused on:

• Developing essential competencies needed to effectively provide services
• Targeted training for subsets of employees (such as front office, public information, member services, and clinical staff).
  

• Increase patient and customer satisfaction;
• Improve staff effectiveness; and
• Decrease legal liability.

Strenthening savvy health care consumer skill sets workshops for people with disabilities and activity limitations:

• With the right strategies for accessing quality care, knowledge of personal healthcare needs, and the ability to effectively communicate with health care providers, people can be effective partners in their healthcare.  Quality preventive care and an emphasis on total wellness are the focus of a many of these workshops.
• Customized to provide educational materials and instruction focused on supporting and strengthening skill sets for being an active partner in personal health care and  belief and confidence in their ability to:
• Achieve health and understand that health, disability and/or chronic conditions can coexist!
• Develop skills in identifying and communicating personal needs.
• Be vocal and active participants in health care as:
• Partners,
• Information providers,
• Problem solvers,
• Decision makers, and
• Advocates.
• Deal with common barriers encountered at health care facilities.
• Increase understanding of health care needs and one’s responsibility to communicate needs, and take greater control of wellness and health services.
• Increase success in navigating the health care system.
• Find and use accurate, trustworthy information to get questions answered.
• Avoid unnecessary pain, discomfort, missing work and missing other important life activities.
• Use and benefit from peer support.
• Practice effective communication strategies including:
• Maximizing time during visits,
• Identifying, asking for and describing needed accommodations,
• Learning how to educate providers about a disability(s).
• Discussing the influence of disability(s) and/or chronic conditions.
• Utilizing tools to help obtain, understand, maintain and communicate medical history.
• Choosing appropriate advocacy strategies.
• Understanding the importance of timing of preventative screenings, which may or may not need adjusting when taking into account specific individual disability issues.

• Managed Care Organizations  
• Alameda Alliance for Health
  
• Health Net
• Inland Empire Health Plan
• Kaiser California
• L. A. Care
• Los Angeles County Community Clinics
• Molina Healthcare   
  
 
• Medical Centers 
• Brigham Women’s Hospital
• Craig Hospital, Denver, CO
• Massachusetts General Hospital
• Sutter Health
• University of California, San Francisco Hospitals
• Washington Hospital Center

• Government Agencies
• California Department of Health Care Services
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Disability and Health Branch
• Department of Health and Human Services  
• Department of Justice
• National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research
• New Jersey Council on Developmental Disabilities
• New York State Department of Health Disability and Health Program

• Health Care Foundations
• California Healthcare Foundation
• California Wellness Foundation
• Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

• Rehabilitation and Training Centers
• Accessible Medical Insturmentation
  
• Aging with Disability, Aging with Spinal Cord Injury, Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center, Downey, CA
• Heath and Wellness, Oregon Health Sciences University, Portland OR
• Managed Care, ILRU Houston, TX & National Rehabilitation Hospital, Washington Hospital, Washington, DC
• Spinal Cord Injury, Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center, Downey, CA
  

• Other Organizations, Companies and Agencies
• Arthritis Foundation, Los Angeles, CA
• Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF), Tucson AZ
• Dayle McIntosh Center, Anaheim, CA
• Lanterman Regional Center, Los Angeles, CA
• Michigan Association For Centers For Independent Living
• Midmark, Ohio
  
• National Rehabilitation Hospital, Washington Hospital, Washington, DC
• National Center on Physical Activity and Disability, University of Illinois at Chicago, IL
• Oregon Health Sciences University, Portlan, OR
  
• Robbins, Salmon & Patt, Chicago, IL
  
• Spinal Bifida Association of America
• United Cerebral Palsy