Health

Back to the Accessible NYC 2025 Report

NYC Health and Hospitals (H+H)

NYC Health + Hospitals (H+H) is the largest public health care system in the United States, providing essential inpatient, outpatient, and home-based services to more than one million New Yorkers every year in more than 70 locations across the city’s five boroughs.

NYC Health + Hospitals is committed to ensuring that everyone has access to quality health care services without exception. To ensure it meets the highest standard of quality care for its patients, H+H optimizes health care delivery through ongoing quality improvement projects that strengthen access to equitable care for people with disabilities. These efforts, which are informed by partnerships and collaborations with MOPD and organizations like the Lighthouse Guild, Helen Keller National Center, The Future Works Institute, and Disability Unite, include investing in physical infrastructure and auxiliary aids and services to serve its patients with disabilities. 

Highlights include:

• Capital improvement projects ensure that all Health + Hospitals facilities have hallways that are large enough and do not restrict travel with wheelchairs, that hallways have handrails to assist people that need more stability when walking, and that bathrooms have accommodations such as wider stalls, heightened toilets, and insulated piping below sinks. Additionally, Health + Hospitals facilities make accommodations for people with additional needs that are not addressed by building code such as ergonomic furniture, lighting upgrades, and automatic doors.
• The expanded availability of auxiliary aids and services. For the D/deaf and hard of hearing population, these include CART (Communication Access Realtime Translation) services, assistive listening devices, notification systems, and captioning devices and services. For individuals who are blind and have low vision, H+H has created an Accessible Format Directory, which includes 45 consent forms in large print, Braille, and audio files in English and the top five languages. In Spring 2025, H+H deployed a communication board prototype to be used in outpatient and inpatient areas, where it displays 77 images of the four top communication needs of nonverbal patients.
• Training and resources, including best practice guidelines to support services for individuals who are blind or have low vision, job aids and other resources on the types of auxiliary aids available to support communication accessibility, webinars and trainings to increase staff knowledge about the policies and best practices for communication accessibility, and an online resource portal for employees to access information to support accessibility. In Spring 2025, H+H piloted the Blind and Low Vision Patient Experience Simulation Training at Queens Hospital, where staff learned about auxiliary aids, and engaged in simulation activities such as blindfolded exercises. Following the simulation, there was a debriefing session to understand the blind and low vision patient’s experience in a clinical setting.

NYC Department of Health

The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (Health Department) is one of the largest public health agencies in the world. It is also one of the nation’s oldest public health agencies, with more than 200 years of leadership in the field. Every day, the NYC Health Department protects and promotes the health of more than 8 million New Yorkers.

The Health Department is committed to addressing health inequities across communities, working to ensure equitable access to services and extending life expectancy for all New Yorkers. As part of this commitment, the Department works to address bias and mitigate remnants of ableism, neuro-ableism, and discrimination in favor of nondisabled people so that all staff and members of the public accessing Health Department programs and services can thrive as their authentic and unlabeled selves. To advance its work in this area, the Department hired as its first full-time Director of Accessibility / Disability Service Facilitator, someone with a strong background in disability justice.

A few examples of recent efforts to improve access and inclusion for people with disabilities are described below. Other initiatives of the Health Department are described in the Employment and Dining sections of this report.

Relationship Building at the Bureau of Environmental Surveillance and Policy

The Department’s Bureau of Environmental Surveillance and Policy (BESP) collects and uses local data sources to inform environmental health policy, conducts health research, and tracks and reports on environmental conditions, exposures, and related health effects in NYC. In collaboration with multiple city agencies, BESP also develop interventions to prevent or minimize weather–related health impacts in vulnerable communities through targeted outreach and the advancement of climate change health adaptation strategies.

The Bureau has been intentional in its outreach and relationship building with disability-focused organizations and added several organizations into the Climate Resilience Advisory Network (CRAN). Two disability-centered organizations were active members of CRAN in 2024 — Bronx Independent Living Services (BILS) and Queer Disability Aid.

The Bureau of Environmental Surveillance and Policy is also conducting a research and policy project that includes four different focus groups with community-based organizations. One of the focus group sessions was hosted by BILS. This was the first time the bureau centered a focus group on people with disabilities and placed emphasis on accessibility best practices.

The Bureau’s Environment and Health Data Portal team published a key topic focused on accessibility, which aims to be an interactive avenue to learn about the strengths and gaps in the ways NYC infrastructure meets the needs of people with disabilities throughout the City. In addition to making accessibility a key topic on the data portal, the Environment and Health Data Portal team will publish an article on making data visualizations more accessible to people using screen readers.

Physical Accessibility Enhancements at Bushwick Health Center

The Bushwick Health Center coordinates and hosts a variety of programs and activities focused on the health and wellness of Bushwick residents. The Center’s partners also offer both primary care and social services, such as assistance with WIC and SNAP.

The Health Department recently enhanced the accessibility of the Bushwick Health Center by renovating the accessible ramp and installing a push-button to automatically open the main entry doors. The Health Department also designated accessible parking spaces.

Agency-Wide Efforts to Tag PDFs

Since 2022, the Health Department has made between 500 and 600 PDFs accessible by tagging. Tagging PDFs makes them easy for everyone to use, especially people with vision disabilities or low literacy. When a PDF is tagged, screen readers know the right order to read things in and what each part means. Tagging also helps PDFs look better on different devices, like phones or tablets, and makes it easier to search inside them.

One way the Health Department enhanced and further developed how it tags PDFs is by using PDF Accessibility Checker (PAC). PAC is a free software tool used to check if a PDF document is accessible. It scans PDFs against accessibility standards like PDF/UA (Universal Accessibility) and WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines), identifying issues such as missing tags, absent image descriptions, or incorrect reading order. PAC provides reports and a “Screen Reader Preview” to show how assistive technologies interpret the document, making it a valuable tool for ensuring PDFs are usable by everyone. While PAC is excellent for automated checks, the Health Department combines this with manual testing for a complete accessibility review.

MOPD Health-Related Initiatives and Collaborations, 2022-2025

During the Adams administration, MOPD participated in a number of health-related events and initiatives, including the following:

• MOPD Grand Rounds Presentation to Department of Rehabilitation, Columbia University Medical Center
  In October 2025, MOPD Commissioner Curry presented to medical staff of the Department of Rehabilitation at Columbia University Medical Center on “Disability and Medical Professionals: Medical Model vs Cultural Model". Her presentation focused on understanding ableism, enhancing communication (including person-first language), and creating accessible environments.
• Health Equity Series for Weil Cornell Internal Medicine Residency Program
  In 2023, 2024 and 2025, Commissioner Curry and staff met with medical residents on the primary care track in the New York Presbyterian Hospital-Weill Cornell Medicine Internal Medicine Residency Program to discuss how primary care doctors can better communicate with patients and be more supportive to individuals with disabilities. Another session is planned for March 2026.
• March 2025 Event with NYU Langone’s Initiative for Women with Disabilities
  In March 2025, MOPD partnered with NYU Langone’s Initiative for Women with Disabilities to bring together healthcare leaders and community voices to discuss critical barriers to healthcare access for women with disabilities. Attendees heard from distinguished panelists, followed by personal stories from community members that highlight challenges and inspire actionable solutions. This event aimed to foster a deeper understanding of improving physical, communication, and attitudinal access to healthcare, promoting a more inclusive and equitable health system for all.
• Distribution of 10,000 Accessible COVID Test Kits
  In October 2022, MOPD, the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS), and H+H coordinated the distribution of 10,000 COVID-19 at-home test kits that are more accessible to New Yorkers that are blind or have low vision. The at-home test kits — manufactured by Ellume and sent to New York City by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) — use easier-to-use test components for those who are blind or have low vision and communicate with a user’s smartphone to give an electronic text readout of their result. The more accessible test kits were made available through MOPD and a host of additional partner organizations.

Facilitated Enrollment in Free and Low-Cost Health Insurance

The Facilitated Enrollment for the Aged, Blind and Disabled Program is a New York State Department of Health-sponsored initiative that connects older adults and people with disabilities to free and low-cost health insurance. Facilitated enrollers provide free, in-person assistance to individuals who are age 65 or older, those who are blind or low vision, and those who have other disabilities. Individuals receive help to enroll in Medicaid and a Medicare Savings Program to help pay Medicare costs. Assistance is available at selected senior centers, health centers and other community settings across New York City in multiple languages. To get assistance call 311, 347-396-4705 or visit nyc.gov/abdprogram.

Medicaid Buy-In for Working People with Disabilities (MBI-WPD)

The Medicaid Buy-In Program offers coverage to people with disabilities who are working and earning more than what is allowed in traditional Medicaid. You can learn more about the requirements and how to enroll on HRA’s website .

 

Back to the Accessible NYC 2025 Report