YouTube Health makes first aid and emergency care videos more accessible

Google‘s video platform YouTube Health announced today it is making step-by-step videos pertaining to first aid and emergency care by reliable healthcare organizations the top search results when users are seeking first aid-related information. 

The “first aid information shelves” will include videos in English and Spanish about choking/Heimlich, bleeding, CPR, seizure, stroke, opioid overdose and heart attack. 

The company also partnered with the Mexican Red Cross, Mass General Brigham and the American Heart Association on content that will be visible on the shelves. 

The AHA created a free course on performing CPR, which includes an in-depth structured learning experience geared toward individuals without medical expertise. 

“We are very pleased to collaborate with YouTube Health to bring videos with techniques approved by the Mexican Red Cross and help people with first aid information just when they need medical support the most. We want to help save lives and prevent bad first-aid techniques that can be performed without the right medical knowledge. We will continue to work to add more reliable and easy-to-understand health content,” Ana Robles Quijano, national fundraising coordinator from the Mexican Red Cross, said in a statement.

THE LARGER TREND

In 2022, YouTube announced it expanded its product features to include health-source information panels, which label credible health content from authoritative sources like educational institutions, public health departments, hospitals and government entities. 

Last year, the company launched two initiatives for healthcare content creators: AI-enabled Aloud, which dubs videos in various languages, and THE-IQ Creator Program, which expands upon the Tackling Health Equity Through Information Quality (THE-IQ) program, established in 2022.

The company piloted a program using Aloud, collaborating with The Journal of the American Medical Association, Osmosis from Elsevier, Mass General Brigham and the Global Health Media Project to allow their content to be accessible in Portuguese and Spanish. The YouTube team and clinicians will work together to review translations. 

The IQ-Creator Program is an endeavor that supports healthcare professionals in developing content for underrepresented communities in the U.S., Brazil, Canada and the U.K.