Help me compose a rant.... I mean rebuttal.

[selkiechick]

I am on a committee of a conventions and we are talking policy. We are talking about medical documentation requirements for accommodations, and I am having a hard time finding the right words to tell them why this is a /terrible/ idea, and as a newb of sorts, I'd love to have some authority to stand on. Is there a good blog post or website out there already outlining the reasons why that is a bad requirement, and why?

Thank you.

(I promise, my next post will have content)

Comments

[selkiechick]

Thank you for this! This is nice and clear.

I hit points 1, 3, 4, 5 and 6, and added a dose of "ZOMG, HIPAA are we really going down this road?"

And, to be fair, this is due in part to one specific thing, we are working pretty hard to norm access throughout the convention, from aisles and parking spaces in panels, to accessible text for publications.

Say, if you have some time, I am working up a "best practices for conventions" document. May I send it to you for commenting when it's ready in about a month?

I've been working on Arisia for a few years now... and have some of this as part of my day job.

[wordweaverlynn]

That would be great!

The FOGcon Access Policy is based on Wiscon's, but you may find it useful.

[selkiechick]

I will look it up. I used a number of things from Wiscon's access plan when working on Arisia's (and now... more convetions!).

[jadelennox]

HIPAA is one of the big ones I was thinking of re: legality. You really want con-running volunteers collecting, disseminating, and protecting individual medical records? Really? You don't see how much it will cost to train your people to do that legally, or deal with the fallout when they screw it up? Personally-identifiable medical records management is *hard*.