Nutricia Homeward: providing a more comprehensive service powered by ReachDeck
Nutricia Homeward provides nursing services to adult and paediatric patients across the UK. Their dedicated patient website is used by patients to access vital services and support information.
As part of their efforts to improve the accessibility of their digital services, Nutricia Homeward chose to add our web accessibility toolbar, Browsealoud (now part of the ReachDeck solution) to their website. Read their customer story to hear how they've created an inclusive online experience for their users.
Outcomes
- The accessibility toolbar helps Nutricia Homeward provide user-friendly and accessible digital services
- The translation tool meets the needs of the multicultural community they serve
- Reachdeck helps ensure their website meets global accessibility standards
The background
Nutricia Homeward provides a dedicated enteral nursing service to adult and paediatric tube-fed patients to enable them to remain living at home. The home support service began over 21 years ago, and today there are now 150 Nutricia Homeward Nurses who support 30,000 tube-fed patients. They manage their nutritional product needs, helping to prevent hospital re-admission and complications.
Providing the ability for patients to order nutritional products and feeding equipment online, Nutricia Homeward also manages approximately 1500 home deliveries each day. Their dedicated patient website is used by patients to obtain support information as well as to place online orders.
The challenge
With a lot of vital information contained within their website and patients with varying needs, Nutricia Homeward wanted to make sure their website was as accessible as possible. They required a solution that would allow every type of user to access their information, from those with poor eyesight and difficulty hearing, to those with learning disabilities and English as a second language.
According to Jo Solomon, Strategy Manager at Nutricia Homeward, "One of the main issues we needed to overcome was having patient literature available in multiple languages. When a patient is being discharged from hospital, there may be a relatively urgent need for a piece of literature, e.g. information about the feeding pump or delivery information, to be translated in a specific language."
When Nutricia Homeward came across Browsealoud, now part of ReachDeck, they decided it was the perfect solution for their requirements:
It was the only digital inclusion software we considered because it provided all that we were looking for. Adding the accessibility toolbar to our website was very straightforward. The customer service team is always extremely helpful and prompt in answering any queries. Now that our patients have access to the toolbar, we’re really seeing the benefits.
The solution
ReachDeck offered Nutricia Homeward a solution which could instantly be added to their website to provide the much-needed translation feature they required. Not only that, but with a range of other features such as text-to-speech and text highlighting, the toolbar enables all of their patients to access their information with ease.
"The translation feature means our patients and their carers have instant access to information. In the past if the literature had to go to a translation service it would take several days before being available."
Lasting value
The addition of ReachDeck has positively impacted the patients registered with Nutricia Homeward, as well as the organisation and its staff.
This tool has been a godsend. Covering such a multicultural area, English is not always [our patients'] first language. Recently, I had a patient referred to me whose parents could only speak, read and write in their native language. I was responsible for giving them vital training regarding their child’s tube and how to care for it - but their language was one that I had never come across before. Using the translation tool, the parents identified their native language and I was able to translate all the documents required as well as arrange an interpreter to help me to deliver physical training.
ReachDeck
As well as the accessibility toolbar, ReachDeck's features also include:
- The ReachDeck Auditor, which identifies accessibility errors across your website. It highlights WCAG compliance errors at Level A, AA and AAA, and identifies readability errors such as overuse of jargon and long sentences
- The ReachDeck Editor, which helps improve the quality and accessibility of written content. As you type, grammar, spelling and readability errors are identified. This helps organisations edit content in line with best practice.
These features identify accessibility barriers quickly and at scale, helping organisations ensure their content can be understood by everyone.
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