By Katy Plant & Corina Paraschiv More than three decades ago, the original Better Choices, Better Health®(BCBH) research team identified the important skills to develop for those self-managing chronic conditions. While these skills are consistent, the motivation for achieving healthy living goals, however, may vary greatly from one individual to another. So to better […]
Sara had never tried a group support program to manage her chronic pain before signing up for a Better Choices, Better Health®(BCBH) online workshop. Over the course of the 6-week workshop, she discovered how group support helped her refocus to better manage her chronic pain.
Samanta is a Caregiver for her husband, a Navy Veteran. Several years after they married, she noticed a change in his behavior. As he became more distant, she grew frustrated and even angry at times. When she discovered the Building Better Caregivers® (BBC) online workshop, she signed up in the hopes it could help her […]
Idena is a Caregiver for her husband, a Vietnam Vet. They struggled to communicate, and went through periods where he simply didn’t want to talk. She would get frustrated when he spoke of the war, because in her mind, it’s long over. But she kept trying; kept building her fortitude and resilience. She even moved […]
As committed, I want to be accountable to you, to the broader community to reducing any bias in our organization and our programs. Here, I am reporting on what we have done this month to ensure that we continue our effort. This month we reviewed our workshop demand projections and the staffing needs given […]
By Serena Weisner -Community Manager for Canary Peer’s Alumni Community “I don’t know how long we’re going to be in the midst of this COVID situation. I can sit around and complain about it and be bitter, or I can do other things to help myself.” Sara communicated to me. She said it […]
By Katy Plant Reflecting on how Canary Peers can best support the Black Lives Matter movement, I am reminded that cultural humility is one of our program’s guiding principles and that it starts with listening. So I am sharing a snippet of Starette’s story as captured through a Canary Peers’ team member, Kathryn Ramos. […]
By Carrie Pittman My parents married just 2 years after the Supreme Court ruled interracial marriage was legal in the United States. I was born 2 years after that, and by the time I was 7 years old, I learned to rank people based on their race. In doing so, I ranked myself. […]
This week Canary Peers announces our partnership with the University of California San Francisco (UCSF). UCSF has received funding for a 5-year National Institutes of Health research study on caregivers utilizing our Building Better Caregivers® program as the study intervention program. The study is open to caregivers living in rural areas of the United States […]
What makes Canary Peers uniquely peers, are our workshop facilitators and mentors. Often when people learn about our programs, they can instantly tell we are using a different approach than most digital therapeutic services. That’s because all of our online workshops are facilitated or coached by workshop leaders who are living with a chronic condition […]
May 6, 2020 Release CANARY HEALTH® LAUNCHES CANARY PEERS New Unit Uniquely Focuses On Peers To Further Drive Health Outcomes And Reduce Health Care Costs For People Living With Chronic Conditions Los Angeles, CA – May 6, 2020 – Canary Health®, a leading digital health and digital therapeutics company, announced today the […]
By Dawn Menning Lately, there has been a lot of discussion in our Better Choices, Better Health® (BCBH) workshops about COVID-19. Not surprisingly, in addition to the coronavirus directly increasing stress and anxiety levels, changes to normal life like orders to shelter in place have forced our participants to adjust their normal self-care habits. We […]
By Katy Plant In this newsletter and many other forums, we have shared the impact peer-driven self-management support has had to increase self-efficacy, reduce anxiety, and improve outcomes. With COVID-19 both exacerbating fears of co-morbid conditions and creating its own challenges through shelter-at-home, this kind of support is needed now more than ever. Unfortunately, in […]
By Mary Barbato You may be staying at home during COVID-19, but your garbage isn’t. How you handle your garbage could save the lives of your community members and those picking up your garbage. As we know, the coronavirus stays on certain surfaces for up to 3 days, and it is still not clear […]
Digital therapeutics (DTx) deliver evidence-based therapeutic interventions to patients that are driven by high quality software programs to prevent, manage, or treat a medical disorder or disease. They are used independently or together with medications, devices, or other therapies to optimize patient care and health outcomes. DTx Alliance Digital Therapeutics in the United States is […]
Earlier this month, I was Chair of the DTx West Conference. This was the seventh in the US based series – one occurring each half year and alternating between Boston and the Bay Area. It has been truly special to see the Digital Therapeutics industry evolve and mature over these several years, and it was […]
By Katy Plant The New Year is a chance at a fresh start. Many of us set New Year’s resolutions with good intentions wanting to get the year off to a successful start. For those that set an intention or resolution to make changes to their health, they may find themselves signing up for […]
By Katy Plant As we’ve discussed in the past, we’re committed to ensuring as great a user experience as we can for our program participants. This means not only a rigorous process of user testing prior to launching new features, but a continuous process of reviewing feedback. Recently, we reviewed the self-reported reasons participants […]
When Greg returned from Iraq and Afghanistan with PTSD and serious physical injuries, he had no one to turn to except his ex-wife Rachel. Without hesitation, she stepped into the role of his caregiver, and turned to the VA for support. Her CSC, Amanda, recommended the Building Better Caregivers® program. Watch her courageous story.
By Brent Vaughan, CEO and Co-Founder, Cognoa We are experiencing a mental health crisis:one person in every four in the world will develop one or more behavioral conditions during their lifetime. Today in the U.S., one in five children have a diagnosable behavioral health disorder and only 21% of those children receive needed treatment. […]
MD Magazine recently sat down with Canary Health’s Chief Medical Officer, Neal Kaufman, to discuss digital health, the benefits of, and the role it plays in the future of healthcare. Read the Article
The success of many therapies for chronic diseases depends in large part on the ability of patients to follow often-complicated self-care regimens. Patients face many challenges when attempting to implement these recommendations such as multiple co-morbidities, physical limitations, lack of resources, poor social support, lack of confidence or skills, and insufficient knowledge. It is not […]
Interview of Dr. Marcus Thygeson, M.D., M.P.H. by Adam Kaufman As defined on Wikipedia: Peer support occurs when people provide knowledge, experience, emotional, social or practical help to each other. It commonly refers to an initiative consisting of trained supporters… and can take a number of forms such as peer mentoring, reflective listening (reflecting […]
Increasing self-efficacy – one’s capacity to identify actions that improve one’s life and the confidence to accomplish those actions – has been shown to:1 Accelerate health behavior change (e.g. healthy eating, medication adherence) Reduce depression, anxiety, and stress-related disorders Diminish social isolation Improve system navigation and health program uptake Importantly, the impact of self-efficacy […]
Self-efficacy, or confidence as it is commonly known, is the optimistic self-belief in one’s competence or chances of successfully accomplishing a task and producing a favorable outcome. Self-efficacy is certainly worth having because as Henry Ford famously put it, “Whether you believe you can or you cannot, you are right.” Gandhi perfectly understood the central […]
I first get snippets of Jen’s story from the Better Choices, Better Health® (BCBH) user survey she completed. She writes: “So my situation was unique because I’m a registered nurse. As a nurse, you’re always helping other people and don’t tend to deal with your own stuff. I had taken care of my elderly […]
It’s the afternoon in Los Angeles and already the evening in Baltimore on Thursday, June 6th when I connect with Suzanne for our Slack call. “It is 2009, and I am working full time for the Baltimore County Department of Aging and I have a part-time job in addition. Being so busy I didn’t […]
Neal had the opportunity to participate in the National Council on Aging’s Age + Action conference this June. Age+Action is the premiere national conference focused on ensuring every person’s right to age with their best possible health and economic security. The event brought together 900+ professionals from across the country who are dedicated to making aging […]
Sharing another partnership this month — Washington, DC Department of Health. Please help us spread the word. DC Health is covering the costs for our Better Choices, Better Health®(BCBH) program for hundreds of district residents. They are making the program available without cost to a limited number of Washington, DC residents. Interested participants can […]
Catasys, Inc., a leading AI and technology-enabled healthcare company, is piloting Canary Health’s Better Choices, Better Health® (BCBH) program with eligible members of one of its national health plan partners. Read the Press Release Schedule A Meeting