Sarah Sheffield, a nurse practitioner at a Department of Veterans Affairs clinic in Eugene, Oregon, had a problem. Her patients — mostly in their 70s and beyond — couldn’t read computer screens. It’s not an unusual problem for older people, which is why you might think Oracle Cerner, the developers of the agency’s new digital health record system, would have anticipated it.
But they didn’t.
Federal law requires government resources to be accessible to patients with disabilities. But patients can’t easily enlarge the text. “They all learned to get strong reading glasses and magnifying glasses,” said Sheffield, who retired in early October.
The difficulties are everyday reminders of a dire reality for patients in the VA system. More than a million patients are blind or have low vision. They rely on software to access prescriptions or send messages to their doctors. But often the technology fails them. Either the screens don’t allow users to zoom in on the text, or screen-reader software that translates text to speech isn’t compatible.
“None of the systems are accessible” to these patients, said Donald Overton, executive director of the Blinded Veterans Association.
Patients often struggle even to log into websites or enter basic information needed to check in for hospital visits, Overton said: “...
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