Caregiver Action Network and Backpack Health Join Forces to Promote Digital Health Tools During National Family Caregivers Month

Washington, DC, Nov. 27, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- To mark National Family Caregivers Month, Caregiver Action Network (CAN) and Backpack Health have joined forces to promote the adoption of digital health tools to aid family caregivers, “supercharging” their caregiving with the power of health data management.

CAN seeks to restore balance to caregivers’ lives by unlocking the power of medical records. Information is power, and caregiver access to online patient medical records is getting easier and more powerful every day. With online patient portals and digital health tools, caregivers can access their loved one’s health data and insurance information whenever it is needed.

“Caregivers manage medications. They get their loved ones to doctor appointments. They balance work, home, and caregiving. They need tools to manage their numerous everyday tasks. That’s where this month’s theme – ‘Supercharge Your Caregiving’ - comes into play,” said John Schall, CEO of Caregiver Action Network. “During National Family Caregivers Month, we want family caregivers to discover new digital tools that can make their lives a bit easier. Thankfully, new applications, such as Backpack Health’s data management platform, can help lighten the load.”

Backpack Health is a mobile and cloud-based app that helps people with chronic, serious, and rare health concerns better manage their health journeys. Backpack Health empowers patients and their caregivers to be effective personal health historians by making it easy to access, own, and control personal health information. Just like a real backpack, the portable, multi-modal, multi-lingual app allows users to carry around what matters most – their comprehensive medical information and documents and those of their loved ones – in one central location.

“Backpack Health and Caregiver Action Network both understand the power that digital health tools provide to family caregivers. For caregivers of family members with rare and chronic diseases, harnessing and unleashing the full strength of our patient empowerment platform can significantly ease the burden of care, providing easy mobile and web-based access to medical records and history, and enabling caregivers to better advocate for their loved ones, who live with complex health conditions,” said Jim Cavan, President and CEO of Backpack Health. “We are united in our missions – this November and year-round – to support and empower caregivers and patients by providing access to their personalized health data.”

Celebrated each November, National Family Caregivers Month is a time to recognize and honor family caregivers across the country. Caregiver Action Network chooses the theme for National Family Caregivers Month annually, spearheads the celebration of NFC Month nationally, and provides educational materials for general use.


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About Caregiver Action Network
Caregiver Action Network (CAN) is the nation's leading family caregiver organization working to improve the quality of life for the more than 90 million Americans who care for loved ones with chronic conditions, disabilities, disease, or the frailties of old age. CAN serves a broad spectrum of family caregivers ranging from the parents of children with special needs, to the families and friends of wounded soldiers; from a young couple dealing with a diagnosis of MS, to adult children caring for parents with Alzheimer's disease. CAN (the National Family Caregivers Association) is a non-profit organization providing education, peer support, and resources to family caregivers across the country free of charge.

About Backpack Health
Backpack Health, LLC builds secure, innovative information tools to help people manage their health journey – including wellness, illnesses, injuries, and chronic health conditions. The Backpack Health mission is to make it easy for everyone to access, own and control their health information to support better health care and attain better health for themselves, their loved ones and their communities. Backpack Health provides a platform for organizations to engage patients, collect up-to-date data and build communities around the globe. To assure data protection for its users’ information, Backpack Health complies with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), adheres to its data protection principles, and participates in the EU-U.S. and Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield Frameworks. Learn more at www.backpackhealth.com.