Web and document accessibility for Ontario hospitals, health teams, research institutes and health organizations: clinical tools, patient information, portals and websites to WCAG 2.1 AA and PDF/UA, from a firm that has built for Sunnybrook, the Centre for Effective Practice and Ontario Brain Institute.
In healthcare, structure is the content
A clinical algorithm is a sequence of decisions. A drug table is a set of relationships. A consent form is a set of fields a person must complete correctly. For a screen-reader user, all three exist only if the document’s structure is built properly — and in healthcare, a document that reads in the wrong order is not merely inaccessible; it is wrong.
Sunnybrook, the Centre for Effective Practice, Hamilton Family Health Team, Ontario Brain Institute and ONDRI are among the health organizations we have served. The work is the whole practice applied with a clinician’s care for order: audits of sites and applications, remediation of the templates and components behind them, and document work that treats reading order and table structure as clinical accuracy. Hospitals and designated health agencies carry the public-sector obligations, including a compliance report every two years; we leave behind the register that makes the report true.
What healthcare has to get right
Content where reading order, tables and forms are clinical, not cosmetic
Clinical tools and guidelines
Algorithms, decision aids and practice tools whose tables and flow are the content. Organizations we have served include the Centre for Effective Practice, whose tools are used across Ontario primary care, and Hamilton Family Health Team.
Patient information
Handouts, consent forms and instructions that a patient with low vision, a screen reader or a cognitive disability must be able to use unaided — in both official languages where you serve them.
Portals and applications
Booking, results, referrals and intake — authenticated journeys where the hardest barriers live, audited with assistive technology end to end.
Research and institute publishing
Reports, data and knowledge-translation material — Ontario Brain Institute and ONDRI are among the organizations we have served — accessible without losing the figures that carry the finding.
Hospital websites
Designated public sector obligations: WCAG 2.0 AA for the public site and its content, compliance reports every two years, and a plan the accessibility committee can show.
Procurement
Hospitals and health agencies in the broader public sector can engage us through the Ontario Vendor of Record supply arrangement.
Questions we're asked
Are hospitals designated public sector organizations under the AODA?
Hospitals are designated public sector organizations under the regulation, with the earlier and stricter timelines that come with it — WCAG 2.0 AA for public websites and web content, and a compliance report every two years. Health organizations that are not designated public sector bodies follow the private and non-profit rules, which turn on employee count.
Our clinical documents are complex. Can they be made accessible without changing them?
Usually, yes. A clinical algorithm is structure — a sequence of decisions and tables — and structure is what accessible documents are made of. We remediate the PDF and, where the source exists, correct it so the next edition exports accessible. Where a figure cannot be described in a sentence, we describe it in full.
Do you handle protected health information?
We do not need it. Accessibility work is done on templates, published documents and test accounts, not on records. Where a document must be handled on your premises, we work there.