2025 – 2030 Acccessibility Plan HSN
Our Commitment to Accessibility – A message from our leaders
As Northeastern Ontario’s Academic Health Sciences Centre, we are committed to identifying, removing, and preventing accessibility barriers to provide the best possible care for our patients and families.
We believe in fostering an environment of equity, diversity, inclusion, anti-racism and accessibility. This includes meeting the individual needs of Indigenous, Francophone, Black, People of Colour, 2SLGBTQIA+, older adults, youth, people living with disabilities, equity deserving and other marginalized groups.
We are committed to addressing inequities in healthcare and promoting an inclusive environment free of racism and discrimination for all that is safe and welcoming.
We are committed to advancing social accountability by leveraging partnerships, providing ongoing training, open dialogue, and adapting our policies and procedures to reflect inclusivity, diversity, equity, accessibility and anti-racism.
As noted by Ontario Health in their Capital Planning guiding principles, “Accessibility can be addressed by identifying barriers to access and removing these barriers. Barrier-free design provides a level of accessibility for people living with disabilities; whereas universal design strives to be a broad-spectrum solution that helps everyone and not just people with disabilities. The ministry supports the principles of barrier-free and universal design, as well as ergonomic design of the workplace.”
In accordance with Ontario’s AODA requirements, HSN is responsible for developing a 5 year plan to outline the organizations objectives to be compliant with provincial accessibility legislation.
HSN’s 2025 – 2030 Accessibility Plan aims to advance inclusion and accessibility in the following areas:
- General Accessibility
- Patient Experience (Customer Service)
- Employment
- Information and Communication
- Design of Public Spaces
We will deliver on this plan and advance accessibility and inclusivity by seeking your feedback and working with those who experience inequities so we can ensure we meet their individual needs.
David McNeil
President and CEO
Health Sciences North |
Dr. Pankaj Bhatia
Chief of Staff
Health Sciences North |
Tom Laughren
Board Chair
Health Sciences North |
Objectives of this plan:
Our purpose of this plan is to increase patient safety and satisfaction. We will do this through focussing on 3 objectives:
- Ensure full compliance with Ontario’s AODA Standards
- Foster an inclusive and accessible culture at HSN that raises our profile as an organization that values inclusivity.
- Identify and eliminate barriers, ensuring equitable access to health services for individuals with disabilities.
Responsibilities
As an organization committed to exceptional care, everyone who works or provides services at Health Sciences North, and its research institute, foundation, volunteer association is responsible for promoting and upholding inclusivity in the workplace.
The mandate of the Accessibility Steering Committee is to ensure that Health Sciences North (HSN) fulfills its obligations under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (2005), and the Integrated Accessibility Standards Regulation (191/11).
The purpose of the AODA Steering Committee is to develop, implement and enforce standards for accessibility related to goods, services, facilities, employment, accommodation and buildings. Our committee reports directly to the Senior Leadership Committee. The ongoing work of the Accessibility Steering Committee will allow HSN to endeavor to incorporate all aspects of the evolving accessibility standards within the corporation. This includes regularly checking for safe care conditions and receiving feedback from out patients and families.
The work of the AODA Committee aligns and supports the work of HSN’s Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Accessibility and Anti-Racism (IDEAA) Committee
General Accessibility
HSN will actively seek feedback regarding the accessibility of programs and services from staff and community.
Initiatives:
- Prepare a Multi-year Accessibility Plan on stakeholder engagement, activities, and after Senior Management approval, make the plan available to public.
- Oversee the completion of the accessibility plan, monitor progress and complete annual reports to senior leadership and the Board.
- Monitor legislation for changes, as per the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act 2005, and the Integrated Accessibility Standards Regulation (191/11) and relate those changes to the organization.
- Liaise with HSN Programs and Services to support the implementation of the compliance requirements of the AODA.
- Be a Stakeholder for departmental policies that incorporate accessibility and AODA requirements.
- Act as a liaison with other community groups about accessibility planning.
Training
HSN will ensure that all employees are provided with training regarding the requirements of Ontario’s accessibility laws and the Ontario’s Human Rights Code.
Initiatives
- Provide learning to all new employees to achieve 100% compliance for training.
- Provide education to employees about support persons, service animals, and legislative responsibilities under AODA.
- Work with IDEAA committee, Francophone Advisory Committee and Indigenous Health Advisory Committee to promote additional training opportunities for staff related to anti-racism and IDEAA training.
- Develop education for leaders on the topics of accommodations, inclusion, and accessibility in recruitment and performance management.
Procurement
Initiatives
HSN will ensure that accessibility criteria are incorporated when procuring or acquiring goods, services, products and facilities.
- Ensure accessibility criteria are key requirements of the procurement process where appropriate and practical when procuring goods, services, etc.
- Ensure vendor contracts contain provisions for compliance with AODA and Human Rights Legislation requirements where appropriate.
Patient Experience (Customer Service)
HSN will ensure that its policies, practices, and procedures respect dignity, independence, integration, and equal opportunity for persons of all abilities.
Initiatives
- Ensure safe and appropriate assistive devices such as wheelchairs and lifts are accessible to patients and staff.
- Enhance wayfinding and navigational support to people of all abilities while attending HSN, with inclusion and accessibility embedded in approach.
- Clarify processes and approaches to ensure timely availability of accessible interpretation services across HSN as well as accessible communication aids for staff caring for persons who are deaf, hard of hearing, blind and/or have other visual needs.
- Integrate equity considerations, including accessibility, in the budget and capital planning processes.
Employment
HSN will support the recruitment of potential employees and retention of current employees by ensuring that policies, practices, and workplaces are accessible, welcoming and inclusive.
Initiatives
- Conduct annual employee survey about the experience of equity, inclusion, and accessibility at HSN.
- Develop education for leaders on the topics of accommodations, inclusion, and anti-ableism in performance management.
- Examine job requirements and minimum qualifications to reduce barriers to application for people of all abilities and ensure only bona fide qualifications are listed.
- Continue to develop HSN as an inclusive workplace through involvement in programs such as Inspire, Hire, Train and Retain and Project Search.
- Complete an Employment Systems Review of Human Resource policies and procedures to identify, remove, and prevent systemic employment barriers focusing on recruitment, promotion, and career development.
- Ensure equity and inclusion are embedded into the workplace health and safety strategy.
Information and Communications
HSN will communicate using a variety of methods and techniques to ensure that information is available to all employees and community members in a format that best suits their needs.
Initiatives
- Promote education to staff about the availability of accessible formats and communication supports.
- Share feedback, complaints and recommendations around accessibility.
- Continue to evaluate and remediate HSN website content and web applications to ensure that they meet or exceed accessibility compliance requirements by providing the appropriate frameworks, tools, guidelines, and training for use by content creators.
- Update and promote Accessibility webpage with necessary supports and information to help improve patient experience.
- Develop accessible document training, support for accessible document revision as well as a process and budget for teams across the organization.
- Work with teams to promote the use of accessible and inclusive handouts and materials for patients and families.
Design of Public Spaces
HSN will ensure that all newly constructed or significantly renovated public spaces are accessible to staff and the community.
Initiatives
- Continue to prioritize and retrofit existing built environment barriers to comply with the Ontario Building Code.
- Continue to implement accessibility improvements, prioritizing the installation of automated buttons for washrooms and doors in public corridors.
- Continue to maintain accessible elements in public spaces through monitoring and regularly planned preventative maintenance of accessible amenities.
- Continue to respond to temporary disruptions when accessible elements in public spaces are not in working order by notifying the public and prioritizing remediation.
- Upgrade existing outdoor eating areas to include accessible seating and clear pathways to access them.
- Complete an accessibility audit of public spaces to create a prioritized list of accessibility enhancements.
- Develop resources to build Facilities Management expertise around inclusive design.
- Ensure that accessibility features are incorporated when designing, procuring, or acquiring self-service kiosks.
Validating our plan
As a Committee, we will continue to monitor and review our plan through quarterly meetings, ensuring our work is informed by provincial accessibility legislation as well as feedback from those with lived experiences.
At HSN, we will engage the following stakeholders for input on this plan:
- Senior Leadership Committee
- Medical Advisory Committee
- Patient and Family Advisory Committee
- Performance Leadership Committee
- Management Forum
- Nurse Clinician Forum
- Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Accessibility and Anti-Racism (IDEAA) Committee
- Children’s Treatment Centre
- Volunteers
Additionally, we will work closely with community groups such as Independent Living Sudbury Manitoulin, to gain insights from their members on the effectiveness of our plan and our approach, focussed on continuous improvement and patient satisfaction.
Measuring our success
We will monitor the following metrics to determine the effectiveness of our plan:
- Compliance with provincial standards
- Submitted complaints/recommendations per month
- Time to resolve accessibility initiatives
- Cost of accessibility remediation initiatives over time
- Audit completion
- Number of accessibility opportunities identified
- Accessibility training completion rate
- Bi-Annual Update to Quality Committee of the Board