- As a digital platform for healthy living, Canary Health provides online support and tracking tools to promote lifestyle change and chronic disease prevention.
- Employers and healthcare organizations partner with Canary primarily to enroll their at-risk employees in Canary’s online CDC-recognized Diabetes Prevention Program.
- Canary focuses on holistic health and “Whole Person Healthcare,” providing programs that also address stress reduction, living with chronic conditions, caregiver training, and sustainable lifestyle changes.
- Canary’s strengths include its emphasis on mental health challenges related to chronic conditions and on the value of non-professional caregivers.
Summary
Canary Health Inc. offers a collection of digital programs for healthy living and chronic disease prevention. Canary takes a holistic approach to lifestyle management, advertising “Whole Person Healthcare.”[1] In addition to offering a CDC-recognized DPP, Canary has programs specifically targeting stress reduction, learning to live with chronic conditions, and training of non-professional caregivers to deliver more effective support. In essence, their work aims to help individuals create the ideal conditions to sustain lifestyle change. They also boast an impressive collection of outcomes. In addition to positive outcomes for prediabetes, they have demonstrated improvements in depression and self-reported confidence in ability to make changes, and claim “industry-best ongoing engagement.” Canary markets primarily to employers and healthcare organizations, rather than to individual consumers.
Why It Stands Out
Canary’s holistic approach and high levels of engagement demonstrate the importance of addressing an individual’s broader life as part of bringing about lifestyle change. A strength of Canary’s program is its acknowledgment of the critical importance of addressing the stress and mental health challenges related to chronic conditions; it also values and helps to leverage the support of non-professional caregivers, such as family members. Canary shows us that beyond motivation, people seeking lifestyle change need holistic personal support.
“Canary Health,” 2016, http://www.canaryhealth.com
