California is set to see a rapid increase in older adults over the next decade when 20 percent of the population will be over age 65. This population will be more diverse than at any other time in CA history. The estimated 4.5 million unpaid family members are the largest long-term workforce caring for older and disabled adults. The state needs to expand support to family caregivers so adults needing assistance can remain in the community and family caregivers can get the services they need to work, care, and thrive.
 
To help serve this growing population, the California Caregiver Resource Center (CRC) system is asking for a budget increase to triple its capabilities. Health Projects Center (HPC) is one of these CRCs. This budget increase would allow HPC to better support you, our clients. With this budget increase, the CRC system would increase use of digital technology to assist caregivers, making it easier for a caregiver to access information and resources. We would have the capacity to aid more caregivers than ever before. 


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Organized by the Santa Cruz MAH a community group of local seniors, advocates and artists called C3 (the Creative Community Committee) shared their art, brainstormed solutions, and offered their words of wisdom for future generations. Come learn about the challenges and solutions to social
isolation in Santa Cruz County at the new exhibition, We’re Still Here , opening April First Friday.

Washington, DC – Caregiver Action Network (CAN), the nation's leading family caregiver organization, and Backpack Health have joined forces to unleash the power of digital tools so family caregivers can have their loved one’s health information on hand whenever and wherever it is needed. Just like a real backpack, this new app allows caregivers to carry around what matters most – medical information and documents – in one secure, virtual location. With Backpack, family caregivers can access, manage, and leverage personal health information safely and securely.
 
“I’m a family caregiver for my mom, so I know how challenging it can be to manage caregiving,” said John Schall, CEO of Caregiver Action Network. “I can use Backpack to track my mom’s meds, share information with my sisters and my mom’s doctors. This app will be great for caregivers – whether at home, traveling with your loved one, or caring from a distance.”
 
Backpack Health is a mobile and cloud-based app for family caregivers of loved ones of any age and any health condition. Family caregivers can securely share as much information as they want with other family members. When the time comes, they can make the information available to EMTs, home health aides, and other doctors too, using the convenient share card feature. What’s more, it can be at a caregiver’s fingertips wherever they or their loved one happen to be.
 
“We wanted to take some of the worry out of caregiving,” explained Jim Cavan, CEO and Founder of Backpack Health. “Having accurate health information ready at your fingertips can be the difference between life and death. So we created an app to do just that and in multiple languages. We are proud to partner with a national leader like Caregiver Action Network to make this app available to family caregivers.”
 
Family caregivers can download the app for free and join the Caregiver Action Network group by visiting join.backpackhealth.com/caregiver.
 
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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.

​For further information contact:
Jason Crosby
Director of Communications
JCrosby@CaregiverAction.org
Phone: 202-454-3931