Emergency and Primary Services for People with Disabilities - Observatory of Public Sector Innovation

This project presents the new approach in service delivery, through which we enabled deaf and hard of hearing persons to have an access to the most essential services, such as emergency call and civil registry services. Tireless engagement of deaf community in service design resulted in elaboration of user centered and People with Disabilities-tailored services, enabling beneficiaries to contact emergency services using a text-based or a video calling system and squire necessary civil documents online via video call.

Innovation Summary

Innovation Overview

Georgia has achieved significant results in service delivery through its one-stop-shops and electronic systems, However the equal access to the public service for People with Disabilities remained a challenge. Thus, the Georgian government has prioritized the increased accessibility to the services for People with Disabilities, which is an ongoing process, involving different stakeholders including Deaf and hard of Hearing Union, as well as the Union for Blind and Visually Impaired and people with mobility problems.
The process started with the most important service - 112 Emergency Services. Before the elaboration of the service, deaf and hard of hearing persons were not able to call an emergency number independently, in case of emergency they had to ask neighbor or a friend who knows sign language to call for 112 services instead of them, which caused problems and delay in time for emergency services. Moreover, to solve this issue Deaf and Hard of Hearing Union was requesting an expensive device from 112 Agency, enabling the Deaf to call for emergency by simply pressing the button. However, due to budgetary constraints 112 Emergency Services was not able to provide such devices. Therefore, the UNDP Georgia and ServiceLab engaged in the process with the initiative from 112 Emergency services to tailor the emergency services for deaf and hard of hearing persons.
The adapted services and its delivery options have been designed with a full engagement of people with disabilities, Using the Design Thinking Methodology the user experiences and expectations were outlined the first prototype elaborated. Surprisingly, through the process it became clear, that the Deaf and Hard of Hearing persons, use video calls to communicate with each other or another option for those without smartphone was the text messages. This enabled us to start negotiations with the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Union on using the video call and the text messages as a means for communication with 112 emergency services. Which turned out to be a very acceptable for to receive the emergency, as well as to provide it from the government perspective. Thus, the video-calling option with a sign language operator receiving the calls and text-based option, whereby the person in need can text 112 services about the emergency and the kind of help needed was introduced.
Furthermore, the process was continued by introducing the online services for the deaf and hard to hearing persons by the Public Service Development Agency, which is also responsible for the civil registry and affiliated services, such as birth certificates, passports, ID cards and etc. Even though the PSDA operated many service delivery centers across the country, the accessibility for hard of hearing persons remained problematic, as the front line operators did not know the sign language People with Disabilities had to bring an interpreter with them, which most of the times was related to the extra expenses to be able to access the services. So, though incorporation of the video call possibility with a sign language operator on the other side provided an opportunity for the deaf and hard of hearing to access the primary public services online.
The goal of the above-mentioned innovation is to ensure that every person with hearing loss has access to the modern telecommunication tools necessary for them to receive services and have full access to the public good offered by the government.
The primary beneficiaries of the project are deaf and hard of hearing persons. It should be mentioned that these people – as a target group, are not only the end user of the product produced in the framework of the project, but their tireless and full of motivation engagement is also noteworthy in the whole phase of the project. During the held workshops, several innovative methodologies have been introduced, including Design Thinking which is frequently used and a proven approach by the ServiceLab and which ensures the equal engagement and participation of the interested parties.
By partnering with the beneficiaries, in this case with the members of the deaf and hard of hearing community, the representatives of the 112 Services, the ServiceLab and UNDP had an opportunity to solve problems in the most efficient way, resulting in highly user-friendly services.
In terms of international recognition, it is noteworthy, that the emergency service for People with Disabilities gained the award for Outstanding Emergency Services Innovation by the European Emergency Number Association in 2016.
Moreover, the ServiceLab transformed into the platform for service development for People with Disabilities and continues to tailor services for people with different impairments. including the adaptation of the PSDA and the Community Centers operating under the PSDA web sites for blind and visually impaired (www.voice.sda.gov.ge; www.voice.center.gov.ge).
the above mentioned, demonstrated that the user engagement in service design and delivery is a crucial component for the implementation of the successful services.

Innovation Description

What Makes Your Project Innovative?

The service itself is a demonstration of the effectiveness in delivering public services for People with Disabilities, taking into consideration the low-cost, high-impact approach, with a simple solution approved by the users themselves. Furthermore, the service enables the government to offer emergency and civil registry services to the deaf and hard of hearing persons and fulfill the primary function of the government to serve people without excluding anyone.
The innovation of the project also lies in the service development process, with its user-centered approach and engagement with an end users in the service design and delivery process. Previously, public services were designed and delivered the way the government officials or civil servants perceived it, which result in increased dissatisfaction and low level of accessibility to the services. User engagement and service design together with the users is a new step forward for the Georgian government towards the communication with end users and open government.

What is the current status of your innovation?

Both the emergency services and the civil services for People with Disabilities were introduced in 2015 and the processes were fully implemented in the daily process of service delivery for 112 Agency and the PSDA. Since then, to ensure the quality maintenance of the services the random checks are being conducted.
Moreover, the above mentioned projects motivated the ServiceLab to adapt the web sites of the PSDA and the Community Centers (operating under the PSDA) to the needs of Blind and visually impaired. In 2017 with an engagement of Beneficiaries the web sites were adapted websites were introduced, to provide information to visually impaired on civil registry services.
Currently, ServiceLab is developing and concept for the project targeting the 66 territorial offices and 56 community centers across Georgia. As a result deaf, hard of hearing, blind, visually impaired and people with mobility problems will have full access to the front line physical service providers.

Innovation Development

Collaborations & Partnerships

Overall, ServiceLab involved all necessary stakeholders in the service design process. particularly for the above mentioned service design following organization were involved. UNDP Georgia provided the support of the project initiated by the 112 Agency, as well as the service related to the civil registry. ServiceLab of the Public Service Development Agency had a role of facilitator, serving as a platform for engagement of service providers and service users (Deaf Union and Union for Blind).

Users, Stakeholders & Beneficiaries

The main beneficiaries of the project and its product are people with disabilities, particularly the ones who are hearing impaired. The Union of the Deaf of Georgia and their representatives appeared to be the collaborators and the beneficiaries at the same time within the frames of this project, as it would be hard develop services without their engagement in each step of its designing process.

Innovation Reflections

Results, Outcomes & Impacts

As the tangible numbers are the best thing to demonstrate the results and effectiveness of the any goal, basing on the data provided by the “112”, we are able to conclude the results in the following way:
There are 380 registered hearing impaired persons in the database of the 112 emergency services (the pre-registration in required for text messaging service, in order to identify the phone number as a number of deaf person), There were 107 cases of using the video-call option and 99 cases of using SMS text option registered since 2015.
As for the civil registry services, since 2015, 32 citizens requested different services, some of them were video calling from abroad.
In addition to many other values of the service, one of the most important thing is the ability of its transfer-ability, which can be used as one of the main measure of the project’s effectiveness. This can also be the demonstration of its sustainability and further development.

Challenges and Failures

As it is expected, we were not exempt from challenges. One of the challenges during development of 112 services was a communication problem due to its specificity. As it appears the text messaging for the deaf was conducted in a different manner, than regular Georgian language, particularly the grammar and wording of the sentences are simplified and most of the times the tenses are not used among deaf community. For example even asking a question about location sounds different (operator should not ask, "could you please tell us your location?" Rather, they should just ask, “where?”). In response to this challenge, through a tireless and active engagement of hearing impaired persons during the whole project operators became able to customize the manner of text messaging with deaf users, to be able to respond to their needs.
Overall, the process and implementation went well. however, many still are not aware of the services, even though we organized the meetings in different communities across Georgia.

Conditions for Success

From our point of view, the main reason of the success of a project is the full engagement of a product’s “end-users” from the very beginning of a service design, which led us to synchronize every concern or a remark automatically and take into consideration on each stage of the process - which itself is a merit of using an innovative methodology.
In terms of material conditions causing the success of the project, is an infrastructure not different from a standard infrastructure determined for typical service delivery. The space has been allocated and the working area of the stuff was equipped with an appropriate computer technique. A cost-effective approach was considered from the beginning of the idea and this, in fact, allowed us to avoid usage of the expensive devices and equipment for the staging the service. As to human resources, it was truly responsible and necessary issue due to the need of attracting people with specific knowledge and experience, able to use a sign language.

Replication

The approach and the service design enables any organization to replicate the approach, as it is very cost efficient, does not require high tech solutions and is easy to adapt to. Good demonstration of this is the implementation of video calls for Deaf within the PSDA, as the project followed the implementation of 112 services for the 112 Agency.
The services were modified to the People with Disabilities with the help of sign language interpreters. This was all largely determined by ServiceLab’s active engagement and facilitation during the 112 emergency services project. This project also had the purpose of capacity building as a result of what replication of the innovation happened.
Moreover, due to the replicability of the project, other government organizations such as Public Service Hall and the Service Agency of the Ministry of Internal Affairs are interested in replication of the services.

Lessons Learned

From the very beginning of the project the goal was to create and provide an adapted service for People with Disabilities in such a way that these services to be fully tailored to their own needs and allow them to receive the adequate and high-quality service. It should be noted that this only became possible through beneficiaries’ active involvement and great motivation. Consequently, we believe that in order to create an effective product, it should be generated from directly those people, to whom this service is determined for.
Basing on our achievements, it is clear that project’s results are quite efficient and successful. The main indicator to measure its effectiveness is that it was replicated by other entities and new adapted services have been introduced. The effect of “spill-over” has materialized.

Anything Else?

Overall, the above mentioned project transformed ServiceLab into the platform for service development across the Georgian government. With a new mandate, ServiceLab supports the ongoing Public Administration Reform, elaborating the unified service delivery policy, where the user engagement and customer oriented service design lies as a basis of the policy. Thus the process grew from the sandbox to implemented policy - from the first, initial project with "112 Emergency Services" to replication and incorporation within the service design and delivery policy to be approved by the government by the end of 2018.