Inclusive innovation in telehealth

Abstract

It has been 30 years since the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act and technological development has drastically changed the future for those with disabilities. As healthcare evolves toward promoting telehealth and patient-centered care, leaders must embrace persons with disabilities and caregivers as valued partners in design and implementation, not as passive “end-users”. We call for a new era of inclusive innovation, a term proposed in this publication to describe accessible technological design for all. The next 30 years of the ADA leading to year 2050, should reflect a new era of access, whereby digital health surmounts geographic, social, and economic barriers toward an inclusive virtual society.