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Tools for Family Caregivers Improves Outcomes and Reduces Costs for Insurance Companies

Chronic health conditions among seniors have emerged as a major cause of stress and functional dependency among Americans.

In fact, over 44 million caregivers in America are in a silent crisis; overwhelmed by the responsibility of caring for a chronically ill, disabled or elderly family member.

According to Steven Dworkin, CEO of CareGiverHelper, a Massachusetts based business that provides tools to assist family caregivers “these families face a multitude of problems from providing the most basic of daily living activities such as feeding, bathing, and transportation, to coordinating medications, medical appointments, dealing with financial responsibilities and more.”

The bulk of care giving traditionally falls to one family member, usually the spouse or adult child. Moving from crisis to crisis, the caregiver can fall prey to physical and emotional illness.

Higher levels of depression, anxiety and other mental health challenges are common among caregivers;
More than one third of caregivers suffer from poor health themselves;
As many as 2 of 3 women caregivers do not take advantage of preventive health services due to lack of information;
The risk of coronary heart disease may be doubled as a result of providing only 9 hours of weekly care;
Other health effects include high blood pressure, increased risk of developing hypertension, poor immune function, slower wound healing and increase in mortality.

The process of care giving is a complex one ranging from simple tasks such as trips to the grocery store to providing the most basic of daily living activities such as feeding, bathing, and toileting,
to coordinating transportation, medications, medical appointments, dealing with financial responsibilities and more.

Care giving can essentially be broken down into 6 primary tasks: assessment, organization, planning, communication, scheduling and monitoring.

Traditionally caregivers are given few or no resources to address these complex tasks. In fact, the stress of caregiving and the difficulty of locating support and local resources often forces families to make the decision to prematurely institutionalize a loved one.

Insurance Companies are now in a unique position to help family caregivers self-identify and access a comprehensive set of tools to assist their beneficiaries through all stages of the process at no cost via a branded portal developed by CareGiverHelper. The benefit is improved outcomes for caregivers and reduced costs for the insurance companies, particularly if they can delay the move to a long term care facility.

The CareGiverHelper portal helps families coordinate and even share these tasks and more. This helps reduce family stress which can help avoid burn-out, improve health of the caregiver and even the care recipient.

Care Giver Helper allows the creation of private and secure family communities that allow them to put all their support information in one place: contact numbers of doctors and caregivers, medications and dosages, a common calendar with appointment reminders, and events such as birthdays or anniversaries.

There is also a place to store medical, legal, insurance and other pertinent documents as well as information on care recipient preferences such as favorite foods, music and hobbies. More important, Care Giver Helper streamlines the organization and communication between family caregivers facilitating daily activities, emergencies and long term planning which reduce the stress and isolation so often associated with care giving responsibilities. 28 resource communities provide information on specific health related topics such as diabetes, Alzheimer’s, heart disease and cancer and as well as providing answers to difficult questions like “when do I take the car keys away from mom?”

Finding resources, seeking expert help, communicating and sharing encouragement with peers are all benefits of these focused communities. One of the unique features of Care Giver Helper’s tools is the ability to access all these resources in one location.

CareGiverHelper is an Internet healthcare marketing and communications company that builds and manages privately branded social networking portals for non-profit and for-profit affinity organizations.

In partnership with CareGiverHelper, companies and organizations can offer their members access to care giving resources and tools for coordinating vital information with family members and caregivers.

Through your own branded portal you can provide information to family members involved in caregiving you also have the ability to “push” beneficial messages about your own services and key dates that will improve healthy outcomes.

CareGiverHelper is offered through affinity partner organizations FREE to families.

co-authored by: Robert M. Zakon

CareGiverHelper, Inc.

CareGiverHelper is an internet healthcare marketing and communications company that assists organizations build brand awareness, client loyalty and new client acquisition, through an online community for family caregivers. This web based service improves task organization and communication between family caregivers in order to assist in facilitating daily activities, emergency response and longer term planning processes. It also includes discussion and support groups that are facilitated by resource communities that each focus on a specific health related topic. The service is free of charge for non-paid caregivers and their families.