Cross4all – Digitalization of a Guide for Professionals

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Expertise on Accessibility for Disabled People and Serving Vulnerable Groups

General Information

Project Title: Cross-border Initiative for Integrated Health and Social Services Promoting Safe Ageing, Early Prevention and Independent Living for All (Cross4all)

Contract Title: Digitalization of a Guide for Professionals (Expertise on Accessibility for Disabled People and Serving Vulnerable Groups)

Identification Number: Cross4all – CN1 – SO1.2 – SC015/3 / Lot 2

Funding: The project is co-funded by the European Union and the National Funds of the Participating Countries under the Interreg IPA CBC programme (CCI 2014 TC 16 I5CB 009) – “Greece – Republic of North Macedonia 2014–2020.”

Period of Implementation: December 2021 – January 2022 (contract signed on 15 December 2021; tasks completed by 20 January 2022)

Implementing Partners:

  • Institute for Prevention, Treatment and Rehabilitation of Cardiovascular Disease “St. Stefan,” Ohrid (Contracting Authority and Project Lead for North Macedonia)
  • Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Lead Partner of the Cross4all project)
  • Other cross-border partners from Greece (Ioannina, Thessaloniki, Region of Western Macedonia)

Contracting Authority: Institute for Prevention, Treatment and Rehabilitation of Cardiovascular Disease “St. Stefan” Settlement St. Stefan nn, 6000 Ohrid, Republic of North Macedonia

Objective

The overall objective of the Cross4all project is to establish inclusive health and social services free of accessibility barriers across the Greek–North Macedonian cross-border region, with a particular focus on improving the management and cross-border use of health and medical data of disadvantaged and high-risk citizens. The project promotes safe ageing, early prevention, and independent living for all.

As part of this broader initiative, the specific objective of GAUSS Institute’s contract (Lot 2) was to transform an 80-page professionally developed Guide for health and social care workers into fully accessible digital formats — a bilingual web portal and an Android mobile application — available to professionals and citizens across the cross-border region.

Role of GAUSS Institute

GAUSS Institute served as the sole Contractor for Lot 2 of this service contract. Our role was the complete digitalization of the Guide for Professionals — from design and development through publishing and long-term hosting.

Specifically, GAUSS Institute was responsible for:

  • Receiving the Guide text (in Macedonian and Greek) from the Contracting Authority and processing it for digital publication;
  • Designing, developing, and launching a bilingual CMS-based web portal;
  • Designing, developing, and publishing a bilingual Android mobile application on Google Play;
  • Ensuring full compliance with the WCAG 2.1 accessibility standard for both the web and mobile versions;
  • Hosting and maintaining both digital platforms for a minimum of five years following the conclusion of the Cross4all project.

Outputs

  • Web Portal: A fully responsive, bilingual (Macedonian and Greek) CMS web portal developed in WordPress, published at cross4all.guide, presenting the complete Guide for Professionals in an accessible, structured format.
  • Android Mobile Application: A bilingual mobile application for Android devices published on Google Play, with full content mirroring of the web portal and features including push notifications, deep-linking, QR code integration, and a native tab menu.
  • 5-Year Hosting and Maintenance: Both the web portal and the mobile application are hosted on GAUSS Institute servers with 99.9% annual uptime and will be maintained for at least five years after the end of the Cross4all project.

Deliverables

  • Developed and published bilingual (Macedonian–Greek) web portal with the full content of the Guide for Professionals, organized in menus, submenus, sections, and categories in line with best practices for web design;
  • Developed and published bilingual Android mobile application on Google Play, integrated with the web portal so that any content update on the website is automatically reflected in the app;
  • WCAG 2.1–compliant design and functionality for both platforms, ensuring perceivability, operability, understandability, and robustness of all content;
  • Complete digitization of text and images from the Guide, including processing of illustrations and selection of royalty-free supplementary images;

Outcomes

  • Health and social care professionals across the cross-border region (and beyond) gained free, permanent digital access to a structured, expert-developed Guide on accessibility for people with disabilities and vulnerable groups;
  • Persons with disabilities, patients, and their families received a user-friendly digital tool in their native languages;
  • The accessibility-first design (WCAG 2.1 compliance) ensures the Guide is usable by people with a wide range of disabilities, including visual, hearing, motor, and cognitive impairments;
  • The web–mobile integration model established a sustainable, low-maintenance infrastructure that allows the Contracting Authority to update content easily without specialized IT knowledge;
  • The project contributed to the broader Cross4all goal of increasing access to health and social services in the Greek–North Macedonian cross-border area.

Significance

This project represents an important contribution to digital health inclusion in the Western Balkans region. By converting a printed professional guide into a freely accessible, standards-compliant digital resource available in two languages and on two platforms, GAUSS Institute helped bridge a critical information gap for health workers serving people with disabilities and vulnerable populations.

The work demonstrates GAUSS Institute’s capacity to deliver EU-funded digital services that combine technical excellence — responsive design, WCAG 2.1 compliance, CMS development, native Android development — with a deep commitment to accessibility and social impact. It also reflects the Institute’s ability to manage the full digital project lifecycle: from planning and prototyping through development, testing, publication, and long-term maintenance.

The project was carried out under the Interreg IPA CBC “Greece – Republic of North Macedonia 2014–2020” programme, co-funded by the European Union, and stands as a concrete example of cross-border cooperation in the service of inclusive public health.

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