March of Dimes Canada After Stroke Website

The Client

March of Dimes is a community-based rehabilitation and advocacy charity for people with physical disabilities. Their goal is to enhance the independence and community participation of people with physical disabilities every day through a wide range of programs and services across the country.

Every ten minutes, a Canadian has a stroke. More than 400,000 Canadians are living with long-term disabilities as a result of a stroke. This number is expected to double in the next 20 years.

The Challenge

Envision IT worked with March of Dimes Canada to develop a portal that will enhance the programs and services they offer to stroke survivors and their caregivers and encourage and support community re-engagement. Their vision is to become the primary service provider for community-based supports to Canadians after a stroke. The After Stroke Program and associated website will help stroke survivors and their caregivers in navigating their way through the health and community care system so that they can experience a successful transition from hospital to home, personal support in community re-engagement and obtain access to timely recovery and support information, and positive peer support.

The Solution

As an extranet site designed specifically for this user group, it was important to make on-boarding easy and deliver an optimal user experience. March of Dimes Canada rolled out Extranet User Manager with their existing SharePoint on-premises, while considering cloud options as a future state. Joining the community requires self-identification, and on-boarding is seamless with self-registration, using an individual's preferred credentials, including email, Google and Facebook.

As part of the registration process, individuals complete a self-assessment. This will provide valuable data to March of Dimes Canada about where in the recovery journey a stroke survivor is and how the organization can allocate and deploy their stroke recovery services.

Through UX testing and customer journey mapping, March of Dimes Canada is ensuring the digital community meets (and exceeds) the needs of stroke survivors. Working with survivors and caregivers to test the user experience of the portal, the charity evaluated how individuals find information and how easy it is to locate, and identified any pain points that needed further tweaking before launch.

The Results

"March of Dimes Canada provides services to a broad range of people with disabilities. Stroke Recovery is one of the organization's fastest growing programs – and the number of stroke survivors is growing each year. There is a huge need to enhance the support available to stroke survivors and caregivers throughout their recovery journey. One area we identified for enhancing the way we provide support is our website, and by working with Envision IT we are able to do this. We intend to build a digital community with Extranet User Manager. Designed with a strong user experience in mind, it allows survivors, caregivers and healthcare partners to get the information they need."