WHEREAS, patients being discharged from a hospital, emergency room, urgent-care center or out-patient surgery facility receive discharge instructions detailing the aftercare regimen the patient should follow at home; and
WHEREAS, following these aftercare instructions is crucial to the patient’s continuing recovery, and carefully following them is often essential to prevent rehospitalization or other adverse consequences; and
WHEREAS, these discharge instructions are generally provided to the patient in print only and do not appear in patient portals such as MyChart, and therefore are not accessible to blind and low-vision patients; and
WHEREAS, blind and low-vision patients often do not have access to someone to read them the print discharge instructions at home nor do all of them have access to technology that will do so, and even if they did, blind patients have the same right to privacy about their medical care as sighted individuals; and
WHEREAS, the process for creating accessible documents is well known and readily achievable; and
WHEREAS, the State of Maryland has enacted many laws calling for accessibility, such as the Patient Bill of rights, which went into effect on October 1, 2019; and
WHEREAS, the Maryland Patient Bill of Rights specifies that patients have the right to “Receive information that is understandable by the patient which may include … Alternative formats, including large print, Braille, audio recordings, and computer files … as needed, without charge”; Now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind of Maryland in Convention assembled this sixteenth day of February, 2025, in Ocean City, Maryland, that this organization demand that all hospitals and similar healthcare facilities, including emergency rooms, urgent care centers and out-patient surgery facilities in Maryland to immediately provide accessible discharge instructions and other relevant information, to their blind and low-vision patients; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization urge these entities to place their patient discharge instructions in their patient portals in an accessible format, as they already do with post-visit notes, laboratory results, and other information; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization call upon the Maryland Department of Health and/or other relevant state entities to issue regulations that will guarantee the safety and well-being of blind and low-vision patients when being discharged from care; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization strongly encourage these entities to work with the National Federation of the Blind’s Center of Excellence in Nonvisual Access to Education, Public Information and Commerce (CENA) to learn about accessible document preparation and other solutions.