THE PRODUCT WE CREATED

Caregiven was founded on experience- going through the pain and frustration of caring for a parent through the process of dying. There was no roadmap to being a caregiver so we created a platform and mobile application that offers clarity and provides support to help with caregiving challenges. Most caregiving is provided by loved ones who are estimated to spend an average of 32.5 hours per week providing care, often with no training and very little support.

Caregiven’s journey is based on Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s research that identifies the emotional stage that families are in following major life events.  This is the backbone of our empathy-driven model - we work with individuals where they are at in the care journey and give them resources and support appropriate to that emotional stage. We designed the app to have zero learning curve - meaning if an individual is familiar with a touch-screen interaction and selecting topics or answering questions, they can use Caregiven.  Our users often come to us following a triggering life event, a fall, or diagnosis, and the last thing we want is to add more complexity by trying to learn a new tool.  We spent considerable resources working with a human-centered design team to help us figure out the right tone and reading level as many products in the marketplace use too much text and confusing medical terminology.  

Most products in the market don’t take into account an individual's emotional state before they recommend activities, even content to read.  This is where Caregiven differs.  We believe that you must first understand how the user is feeling in that moment - what they want to accomplish - this is required before anything else.  We use a chatbot that asks users how THEY are feeling - and if someone indicates they are overwhelmed or sad, the recommendation engine does not direct them to heavy or complicated activities.   We also use empowerment tools to support caregivers, so they are given choices of what they want to do or how to proceed rather than being told what to do.  Again, this stems back to what caregivers have told us - they are tired of being reactionary and want a tool that not only helps them anticipate and be proactive, but they want to be able to choose what’s right for them.  

Our differentiator is that we didn’t build an app to facilitate care coordination - there are great companies that always do that.  Our app, first and foremost, was meant to address the statement that “there is no roadmap to caregiving or end-of-life”.  Each of our milestone phases is based on an emotional stage and we align articles and activities to meet consumers where they are.