Beyond the Checklist
Accessibility in healthcare isn’t optional.
It’s essential.
Bee, DeafHealth’s Public Health Outreach Coordinator, shared key insights at the DC Public Health Association Panel about how healthcare providers can better meet the needs of patients with diverse learning styles and accessibility requirements.
Creative, hands-on approaches and thoughtful tools can make a huge difference, but how?
Watch the reel to hear Bee’s story and learn practical ways to make every patient feel informed, respected, and included.
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Transcript and Video Description
[Video Description: The post has a video thumbnail with blue shading overlaid. The middle has a text bubble that reads “Beyond the Checklist” in white text with rose background. In the video: A white nonbinary person wearing a black button-down shirt with a grey vest. Bee has long, curly brown hair worn down and is wearing clear glasses. They are seated behind a long table, in front of an overhead screen.
Transcript: I often work with DeafBlind patients, and in one situation a DeafBlind patient needed a breast biopsy to test for breast cancer. This patient, DeafBlind since birth, did not understand what a breast biopsy was and wanted to know how it would work, where it would be done, and what to expect. I checked in with the nurse to see if they had any tactile materials I could use to show the location of the biopsy. The nurse was floored—there was nothing tactile available, only visual aids. I was baffled. As the patient’s health advocate, I knew it would be inappropriate to use the patient’s own body to demonstrate, and I wanted to respect their bodily autonomy. Still, the patient needed to know where and how the biopsy would happen so they could be mentally prepared. On the spot, I grabbed some tissues and rolled them into a tight ball to use as a model. That simple ball of tissues allowed me to explain the procedure in a way the patient could understand. This is one example of why I encourage building a toolkit of tactile materials, not just for DeafBlind or Blind patients, but also for patients with autism and others with different learning styles. When you don’t have accessible materials ready, the message patients receive is that they don’t matter and don’t belong. Many of us have received that message our entire lives.
That is not the message you want to send in your exam rooms. You want every patient to feel they belong and to know you are prepared to care for them. We need to change the messaging that exists out there. [The screen fades to show a thumbnail of a faded white background of a doctor holding hands with another individual] Deaf. Healthy. DeafHealth. Learn more at www.deafhealthaccess.org.].]