110 Iowa L. Rev. 225 (2024)
Abstract
Compared to people without disabilities, people with disabilities experience significant health disparities. The recent move toward virtual health care—like online appointments, patient portals, and remote patient monitoring—offered an opportunity to address those inequities. Virtual health care can reduce costs, increase access, streamline communication, and improve the management of chronic conditions. Unfortunately, many of these technologies are inaccessible to patients with disabilities, despite legal obligations requiring providers to offer accessible, nondiscriminatory health care. This Article argues that the lack of accessible virtual health care constitutes an innovation failure: Accessible products and services could—and in fact should—exist but do not. It then considers the reasons for this failure and offers suggestions to inspire accessible design, using both antidiscrimination law and innovation policy.