The DEC seeks to engage the research, clinical, and advocacy communities working on accessibility initiatives at hospitals and clinics around the country. It provides resources to support healthcare equity initiatives, engages in research to improve accessibility and quality of health care delivered to people with disabilities, and facilitates the DEC Leaders group to share ideas and solutions to ensure equitable care. In 2020, the DEC—then the Advancing Equitable Care Cooperative—approached SCP to create a new brand identity, build a new website, and develop a strategic plan to disseminate its materials to health systems nationwide.

Our Role
Working closely with the DEC team, SCP conducted a review of the program’s existing materials, analogous organizations and initiatives and interviewed key stakeholders to understand DEC’s unique attributes and position in the field. We then developed a brand identity and new program name. We also revised the DEC website, shifting it to an easy-to-manage Word Press platform. To help engage current and potential audiences in the disability and health equity field, SCP developed an e-newsletter that is sent several times per year.

SCP established DEC’s social media capacity, developing a regular Twitter (now X) feed to build awareness of the project and issues related to disability equity and health care.

On the thought leadership front, SCP helped create the DEC whitepaper, “Patient Centered Outcomes Research Priorities to Advance Disability Equity,” a DEC implementation guide to aid healthcare organizations in developing successful processes for systematically documenting disability status and accommodations in hospitals and clinics, and a guest post for the AHIMA Foundation blog on documenting disabilities in electronic health records.

Impact
SCP helped the DEC strengthen connection with key audiences, including expanding the membership of the DEC Leaders group by 68% and its newsletter subscriber list by 95%.

Our Work