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.
This past month, I caught up with JV who has been a participant in our digital DPP program for nearly 1 year. I love hearing the stories and feedback of participants at all different points in their journey, and in this case it was great to hear the story of a longtime participant. JV has […]
By Neal Kaufman One of the real pleasures I take in my role at Canary Coaches is the opportunity to speak with participants. This past week, JR, a 35-year old happily married mother of three granted me her time and told me a part of her story. I so appreciate her willingness to share. […]
G. Alexander Fleming, John R. Petrie, Richard M. Bergenstal, Reinhard W. Holl, Anne L. Peters, Lutz Heinemann. Diabetes Care 2020 Jan; 43(1): 250-260. Commentary by Neal Kaufman As the availability of digital therapeutics increase at an extraordinary rapid rate it becomes critical that these approaches are able to demonstrate safety and efficacy. This […]
This Fall, VA Caregiver Support Services will be expanding their program of comprehensive assistance for family caregivers. Over the last 6 years, our Building Better Caregivers® (BBC) program has been available to all Caregivers who are caring for a Veteran from any era. To date over 9,000 Caregivers have enrolled in Building Better Caregivers. The […]
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 […]
By Jeremy Gilbert Protected: Prescription Digital Therapeutics – Is there a reason to believe? On a weekly basis people call me and ask me what I think about PDTs, otherwise known as “prescription digital therapeutics”. I used to be the CTO/CPO of Pear Therapeutics, which arguably pioneered the entire PDT business model. While at Pear, I […]
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 […]
This month, we celebrate the life of our colleague Kathleen Mahoney who passed away in early August. Like many of our peers, Kathleen had facilitated our online workshops for close to a decade helping hundreds of workshop participants and was a close colleague and friend to many. She was a seasoned facilitator and became a […]
By Wendy Wood Resilience is the courage to grow from stress. But, how do we become more proficient at becoming more resilient? Here are some ideas: Resilience is: the building of our inner resources, and, the identification of reliable external resources. Resilience is: self-confidence that supports fear-management. Resilience is: the ability to stabilize […]
By Wendy Wood Yoga was the air I breathed and the food I ate; until it wasn’t. A back injury came between my yoga-yes and my yoga-no status. When practicing yoga was no longer an option for me, I was left with a shattered self-image and a directionless routine. If I didn’t practice yoga, […]
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 Neal Kaufman, MD, MPH l General Manager, Canary Coaches Over the 12 years since we first launched our digital Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP), we have annually made significant improvements in our approach based on changes in the DPP curriculum and advances in the digital delivery of interventions. We are currently engaged in a […]
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. […]
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 Canary Coaches Team Canary Coaches are healthcare professionals who provide support to individuals who want to lower their risk of developing type 2 diabetes by losing weight and becoming more active. With the heightened recognition of structural racism, we are increasingly aware how our biases influence our thoughts, words, and actions. We have […]
By Wendy Wood Many, many, years ago, I found myself in a drug store looking for a band-aid for my boyfriend. For the first time in my life, “flesh color” did not denote the color of skin I was trying to match. My mind was blown that I had never noticed this before. I […]
By Dawn Menning, MS, RD, CDE We all are living through unimaginable changes and challenges in our everyday life. Who would have thought that the entire world would shut down and we would all need to keep isolated from loved ones, friends, and co-workers. With that backdrop, Canary Coaches has continued to support and engage […]
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 […]
Consultant Project Manager Canary Coaches’ New DPP program Project background: Canary Health (www.canarycoaches.com), a leader in digital medicine and digital therapeutics, is upgrading its virtual type 2 Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP). Canary Health was an early pioneer in delivering the digital DPP (offered since 2008) and has achieved Full Recognition from the CDC for […]
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 […]
March 11, 2020 Release CANARY HEALTH® LAUNCHES CANARY COACHES Wholly Owned Business Unit Focused on Diabetes Coaching and Prevention Services Los Angeles, CA – March 11, 2020 – Canary Health®, a leading digital health and digital therapeutics company, announced today the launch of its wholly owned, diabetes coaching and diabetes prevention focused business unit. […]
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 […]