Happy New Year!

Let's make 2018 The Year of Action. That means you take the steps necessary to achieve your goals. Just go for it! Not only can you do it, you deserve all of the success you achieve. #TheCare3Way #YearofAction #HappyNewYear #caregiving

What If We Received Care Instructions On Our Phones Like This? #SendAnAction #TheCare3Way

Now that's better. Each task sent as an individual Action to complete. #SendAnAction #TheCare3Way

Getting Care Instructions Like This Is Unacceptable

Hospitals MUST get better. Paper? A cross-out? Really?? #sendanaction #mhealth #TheCare3Way

Care3 and Congressional Repeal of FCC Internet Privacy Rules

Dear Care3 Family, As you may have heard, Congress rolled back the FCC’s internet privacy rules this past week. If the President signs this bill into law as expected, it would allow internet service providers (ISPs) like AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Cox and others to sell your personal online and mobile web browsing data and information on your mobile app usage.

At Care3, we want you to understand that we take privacy very seriously.

1. No third party can view your activity on Care3. Neither the government nor any ISP has access to your personal health information and that of your loved ones on Care3. When you use the Care3 app to send text and media messages back and forth with family and friends, each text is encrypted so no one can intercept the messages, pictures, or audio files as they pass from your phone to our servers. This extra layer of security causes our app to be a bit slower than what you might experience with iMessage or SMS texting (as they are not encrypted). But we think the added security is worth an extra second or two.
2. Care3 meets all government privacy and security standards for PHI storage. All data and media files are encrypted in our dedicated cloud storage facilities. Cloud storage services like iCloud, Dropbox, and others do not meet government privacy standards for storage of personal health information. Most people don’t know that. We want you to be confident that all of your health communications are safe and secure with Care3.

Note: Many popular messaging apps are NOT safe for healthcare conversations. The  apps above do not encrypt text messages traveling between your phone and their servers to the government's standard for health information, the highest level. They also neither encrypt nor retain your data as required by law for health information storage. With this lighter security, hackers have an easier time if they want to intercept your information.

Many of you have indicated that you will increase your usage of Care3 even for non-health related conversations because of the high level of security that Care3 offers. We encourage this as our executive team has also increased our usage of Care3 for non-health related conversations as of late.

We appreciate your continued use of Care3. We have just passed 2,000 families using Care3! Have confidence that your information and activity are safe and secure regardless of what privacy access Congress gives to ISPs.

If you have any questions about the privacy and security of your texts or other information shared on Care3, please don’t hesitate to contact us. Like we always say, we’re there for you because you’re there for others.

Take care, David S. Williams Co-Founder & CEO Care3, Inc.

Events From This Weekend #caregivers #travelban

Care3 Family, This weekend has seen unprecedented activity with the US Government ban on immigrants from seven countries. Some of these detainees were doctors who practice at leading healthcare institutions that serve our loved ones, including a hospital system where my sister receives care.

No matter where we fall on the political spectrum, we all want the best care we can get for our family and others. We can’t have our healthcare professionals unavailable to care for our loved ones because of poor policy implementation. We work too hard to keep our loved ones at their highest level and they deserve the best possible care.

Please contact your elected officials to raise your voice on behalf of all caregivers and the patients and loved ones we care for.

Take care,

David S. Williams III Co-Founder & CEO Care3, Inc.

Five Ways to Stay in Your Caregiving Flow When Family Comes to Town

The holiday season is filled with happiness, cheer, and family visits. As a caregiver, those family visits can be wonderful, but also introduce interruptions to your routine, especially if your visitors are staying with you in the house.

Here are five ways to stay in your caregiving flow when family comes to town.

#1. Warn them about priorities.

People like to be treated like guests and get waited on hand and foot when they’re visiting. Even family. Maybe ESPECIALLY family. Be sure to warn them up front that your caregiving responsibilities come before their needs and that they are able-bodied and can do things for themselves. You can be blunt since, well, they’re family. They’ll understand.

#2. Show them what you do each day.

Many family members don’t have a good idea of what gets done each day to take care of your loved one. They’re in the privileged position of not having to do much, if anything, to help out. A clever way to expose them to the routine is to walk them through it all one day as they’re there. At that point, they’ll get the picture. You can also send them the list of daily activities that you’re doing while they’re in town so they get the visual picture ahead of time. Either way, showing them what’s required will result in your gaining newfound respect among family members.

#3. Recruit help.

If you do #2, then this one becomes second nature. Your family can see how to help immediately and see how to help out while they’re in town or in the house. That can get you a few minutes of solitude, respite, or free time to do other things, like holiday shopping for gifts for THEM. Funny how family become very helpful when they know you’re out buying them presents.

#4. Start a group messaging conversation.*

As it becomes clear what is required to care for your loved one, family will want to be kept updated periodically on status. A group messaging conversation can keep everyone in the loop, and also increases overall communication between remote family members, which is actually nice. Using your caregiving role to bring family closer together this holiday season can be a very positive side effect of their visits.

#5. Ask for ongoing help.

Having earned the respect of family members for your caregiving role, the other benefit is feeling more comfortable asking for help. In the group conversation you can ask if anyone can do a particular task. No matter how small, people will feel more connected to you and want to help. This is an easy way to get them to contribute.

*NOTE: Make sure you’re using a HIPAA-compliant messaging app, like Care3, for this group conversation. When sharing personal health information of a patient, the data must be confidential and protected. The popular messaging apps like FB Messenger, iMessage, and SMS are NOT secure for healthcare conversations.

So take advantage of the family time this holiday season while staying in your caregiving flow. Use this time to share what you’re doing in your caregiving role and recruit others to help, not only while they’re visiting, but beyond as well.

Happy Holidays!

HIPAA Compliance is No Longer Optional for Mobile Messaging

In today's consumer-driven healthcare environment, it's imperative for providers, patients, and families be able to communicate in a HIPAA-compliant manner. Having a patient portal isn't enough. The engagement levels are too low. You need a HIPAA-compliant mobile messaging solution for your communications between staff and with clients and their families. Care3 is the first and only HIPAA-compliant text messaging app available directly to consumers (DTC) with integrated calendar and to-do list features. This means that you can download Care3 directly from the iTunes App Store (iPhone and iPad available) to communicate all health-related information with healthcare professionals, family members and friends with confidence. Your messages will be private, secure, and compliant with the gold standard of communication encryption and data storage.

And before you ask, the answer is yes: Care3 is 100% FREE to download.

What makes Care3 different from other HIPAA-compliant messaging apps?

Simply stated, Care3 is far more than messaging and has a bias toward action.

Care3 includes:

• HIPAA-compliant messaging to securely communicate with your staff and families.
• Care Team group conversations to include professionals and family members engaged.
• Action Messages (patent-pending) to show staff and family members what care tasks need completion and keep track of progress.
• A full-featured Calendar to review what Actions you have accepted with each day's to-do list included.
• Invitations that are sent via text message or email just by starting a new conversation.
• A Starter Care Plan template of common care tasks (fully customizable) for all Care Teams.

Care3 makes you more effective at managing care to get the best outcomes for your patients and families while not compromising privacy, security, and confidentiality while communicating. No other HIPAA-compliant messaging application provides this much functionality--whether a paid app or free. And did we mention Care3 is FREE?

Download and install the FREE Care3 mobile messaging app now! Communicate in compliance with your staff and family clients.

Leading Toward Justice in Healthcare

by David S. Williams III, co-Founder and CEO of Care3 and 2013 Henry Crown Fellow of The Aspen Institute

I had the absolute pleasure of attending The Aspen Institute's annual Action Forum last week in Aspen, CO. As the 1st inaugural Resnick Aspen Action Forum (thank you Resnick Family of The Wonderful Company!), the theme was bold: Leading Toward Justice.

The past 18 months have seen multiple shocking results within the criminal justice system with the deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of police and the subsequent lack of prosecution for these deaths. While the blame for these deaths face fierce debate in the community and the courtroom, justice can only be served when all people receive equal treatment under the law.

In what I and many attendees describe as the most powerful speech about injustice ever given, Bryan Stevenson, Executive Director of The Equal Justice Initiative brought an assembly of 400 global leaders to tears when describing the injustice he faces daily in his work with death row inmates. This speech is a MUST-SEE for anyone looking for ways to make meaningful change as he provides a four-point framework to lead toward justice.

1. Get Proximate
2. Change The Narratives that Maintain Injustice
3. Stay Hopeful
4. Be Uncomfortable

The Aspen Institute also posted a summary of Bryan's talk which, of course, doesn't do him "justice" on its own. Please watch the speech, listen, and feel what all of us in the room felt.

But injustice doesn't only apply to law enforcement and the criminal justice system in America. Think about our educational system and, most relevant to my professional work, the healthcare system.

Healthcare in America - Is Justice Served?

By any measure, the healthcare capabilities of US-based hospitals and health centers are the best in the world. With leading institutions such as Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, and many other healthcare systems, the knowledge of evidence-based care generated at these institutions gives US residents the opportunity to receive top-notch care.

Or does it?

Introducing the 2014 AHRQ National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Report. This annual scorecard measures different ways healthcare doesn't reach the "underserved" defined as the poor, people of color, the disabled, rural, and seniors. Across all measures of access, quality, and outcomes, underserved populations trail that of the general population. Is that justice?

For example, in one graphic AHRQ ranks each US state in quartiles by the quality of healthcare delivered:

On a second graphic, AHRQ charts each US state by the level of disparity in healthcare delivered based solely on race:

(Note: A similar analysis was NOT completed in the 2015 AHRQ report)

An analysis of these charts (which AHRQ curiously didn't do themselves), one can see the states in which the highest level of care is delivered, while also having the highest level of disparity of care based on race. Six (6) states fall into that dubious group: Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Delaware (Michigan, Pennsylvania, NY and NJ are in the second highest quartile of quality, but also have the highest level of disparity).

Again, these six states have the capability to deliver the highest quality of care for their residents--but also sport the highest disparity levels of healthcare access, quality, and outcomes based solely on the race of patients.

Is this justice?

Further complicating this picture is a recent study by researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine published in The BMJ (formerly British Medical Journal) stating that if medical errors were counted correctly, they would rank third on the list of causes of death in the US behind cardiovascular disease and cancer. The researchers penned an open letter to the CDC asking them to update their data collection methods to account for avoidable medical errors as a cause of death, not simply the underlying disease that led to the need for acute care. Their methodology in coming to that conclusion could also be applied to the environments in which healthcare disparities exist by race.

It doesn't take a scientist to recognize that a disproportionate level of medical errors likely occur to those in underserved populations. There is no accountability for avoidable medical errors in the same manner that (theoretically) the criminal justice system could apply accountability for broken laws because those medical errors are not counted.

If a disproportionate amount of the 250,000 suspected avoidable medical errors that lead to death in the US happen to patients in underserved populations because of poor quality being delivered, isn't that the same as unconscious bias (or perhaps conscious discrimination) leading to different treatment of people of color by law enforcement and the criminal justice system? Both groups have the capability of delivering better outcomes in the moment, but "somehow" the most optimal outcomes are not achieved.

Is that justice?

Healthcare providers do noble work. So do police officers. They are people we respect in our communities and need to perform at their highest levels to reach our best quality of life. Can we improve accountability and reporting to help increase quality and drive better outcomes for all? I believe we can.

Leading Toward Justice

Leading toward justice requires acknowledgement that injustice exists. Health disparities are a form of injustice and many organizations are standing up to research and fix the problem. These organizations have clearly identified the injustice in health disparities and are taking steps to eliminate them. Bravo.

Now it's time for action and results.

Care3 is built to battle inequities and disparities in healthcare using mobile and social technology. We welcome the opportunity to partner with healthcare entities such as hospital systems, health plans, community hospitals, and community-based care management firms in initiatives where measurable impact can be achieved with underserved populations.

About David S. Williams III

David S. Williams III is a leading innovator in consumer digital health. Care3 is inspired by David’s experience caring for his special needs son and the realization that the most vulnerable members of our society including seniors, people of color, and the disabled do not have equal access to healthcare and receive woefully inadequate quality of care in their homes and communities.  Care3 is built to fix these unacceptable and unnecessary inequities.

#Care3How2 - Call Everyone in to Action

Welcome back to our series #Care3How2! We’re examining how you can use Action Messages in seven different real-world situations to ask for help, get support or share information. Today we’re delving into the the situation when you need someone to do an odd task. Just log in to Care3, and create your Action Message. Fill in all the important details and select who you want to receive the message (everyone or just certain individuals).

Recommended Actions • Give a Ride • Visit Your Loved One • Add Appointment • Pick Up Medicine • Get Answers • Buy Something • Do Something

Here are more examples of tasks and projects you could use Action Messages for:

• Help me clean and organize Pops’ garage • Need research on wills and estate planning • Granny’s yard needs to be mowed • Plan this year’s family reunion • Bingo with Aunt Shirley on Monday • Set Robbie’s audiologist appointment • Install safety bars in my bathrooms

There are many other unique forms of assistance needed in every different family, though. The important thing is to make sure you ask for help, whatever it is. As a primary caregiver, you can't hesitate or feel like you are putting people out. They want to help! They’ve said so many times. Allow them to pitch in and share the effort by simply telling them what’s needed in clear, specific terms. That way, these actions are easily completed, and everyone feels a sense of accomplishment in working together to support and care for your loved one.

Eliminate the stress, isolation and guilt of caregiving by communicating with everyone in your loved one’s life with Care3.

#Care3How2 - Remote Family Caregivers Power "C-Commerce"

Yes, #Care3How2 has done it. We've coined a new term for remote caregivers purchasing items for loved ones. We call it "Care Commerce" or "C-Commerce" for short. One of the challenges of caregiving is providing assistance from afar. In today’s migratory society, many adult children live in different cities and states than their elderly parents. This can lead to feelings of guilt and helplessness when it comes to the care their parents may require as they age. Being on a Care3 Care Team is a great way to keep family members and close friends who may live in other places involved in the ongoing care being provided for your loved one.

Recommended Actions • Give a Ride • Visit Your Loved One • Add Appointment • Pick Up Medicine • Get Answers • Buy Something • Do Something

What kind of help can be provided by out-of-town team members? In addition to offering answers, support and thanks to those who are the primary caregivers, these members can often take care of the purchase of caregiving supplies and other needed items thanks to the convenience of Internet shopping. You got it: C-Commerce. For example, let’s say your 81-year-old mother lives with your brother in another state and no longer drives. While you are unable to help with day-to-day errands and tasks, you still want to contribute.

Here’s one way. Now that your Care3 Care Team is set up and running, you receive an Action Message from your brother. It appears your mother wants to resume her beloved knitting hobby now that her tremors are under control due to medication. The problem is that her knitting supplies were somehow lost when she moved in with your brother. Eager to help out, you accept your brother’s Action Message by tapping “Accept” From there, you go online to purchase some yarn in your mother’s favorite colors as well as the knitting kit she used to have, which comes with all the needed accessories and tools. You enter your brother’s address for the shipping location, and voila! The Action has been satisfied! Not only have you saved your brother time and money, but your C-Commerce will make your mother feel cared for and loved.

That’s what caregiving’s all about, isn’t it? Caring from afar? Engage in C-Commerce.

#Care3How2 - Answers to Questions in Seconds is Infectious

In this #Care3How2 installment, find out how one Action can lead to another and another. You could say it's the "infectious" nature of caring. Beyond making it easy to get help with specific tasks and errands, Care3 can also help you gather information and advice from your care team, such as when illness strikes or there’s something you need to figure out quickly. Both caregivers and the loved ones they’re caring for can use Care3 messages to ask questions and receive answers in real time. People respond almost immediately to text messages so sending a request this way is likely to get people to act more quickly.

Recommended Actions • Give a Ride • Visit Your Loved One • Add Appointment • Pick Up Medicine • Get Answers • Buy Something • Do Something

Here’s an example to help illustrate. Imagine you’ve set up an Care Team for your beloved Aunt Leigh, an active senior who lives alone in the suburbs of your city. Aunt Leigh has recently come down with some sort of flu, and she’s unsure what daytime flu medications would be best for her symptoms. Since you’re swamped at work, you want to message your care team for their recommendations.

To do that, you simply create an Action Message in your Care Team conversation. From there you'll be prompted to enter your Action title (“Give me daytime flu med recommendations”) and you can add any additional notes on her symptoms or active ingredients that she has to avoid due to potential interactions with her other meds. You can then select whom the message goes to, everyone on the team or just select individuals.

Within minutes (or seconds!), various family members have chimed in with their battle-tested advice and suggested flu remedies. Cousin Simon has even offered to pick up the medicine he swears by at the pharmacy (there's that C-Commerce again) and bring it to Aunt Leigh at lunch. One Action generated another. Actions are infectious, right? Thus, neither you nor Aunt Leigh has to figure this out alone or worry about getting to the store. Your care team has her back, and now that they know she’s sick, they can check in on her as she recovers from this nasty bug and resumes her busy, independent lifestyle.

#Care3How2 - Can't Make the Pharmacy Run? What Now?

We’re spotlighting the different ways you can use Care3 to request help from your care team – from rides to social visits. Today we’re focusing on one of the most common errands for caregivers. How many times have you had to run to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription drug or an over-the-counter cold remedy for your loved one? And how many times has it been an inconvenience, given your busy schedule and the closing time of the pharmacy?

Recommended Actions • Give a Ride • Visit Your Loved One • Add Appointment • Pick Up Medicine • Get Answers • Buy Something • Do Something

Next time, instead of stressing about making it the drugstore between soccer practice and PTA, why not send out a request for help using Care3? Chances are, someone on your care team may be able to swing by and pick up Grandpa’s blood pressure medication. In addition, they’d likely be thrilled to lend a hand. Family and friends are always asking what they can do to help with Grandpa, right? This is one of the ways of answering that question and allowing others to pitch in with a clear, specific task.

Start by logging onto Care3 and clicking the Action Message icon in the Care Team conversation. Then enter the name of the medicine, the pharmacy, the pharmacy’s location and the time the prescription will be ready. In the “Notes” section, you may want to note the pharmacy’s closing time as well as anything else relevant, such as the expected price of the drug and the fact that the pharmacy already has all of Grandpa’s insurance information on file. Send off your request and receive a notification on your iPhone during soccer practice that your neighbor Ellen has volunteered. Click “Thanks” to show your gratitude and exhale knowing that it’s one less thing on your plate for today.

See how Action Messages get others to help? There’s still more you can do with them, though.