Monterey, CA Social Media Can Help Caregivers Coordinate Care For A Loved One.

View From A Non-Profit Serving Carmel, Carmel Valley, Carmel-by-the-Sea, Gonzalez, Greenfield, King City, Marina, Monterey, Pacific Grove, Pebble Beach, Salinas, Seaside And Soledad California

There was a great story in USA Today about a non-profit called Caring Bridge which launched a social media site 15 years ago, well before such things were in vogue.  In a world without Facebook or Twitter, Sona Mehring decided to launch a web site to tell friends and families about the health conditions of a friend who had a baby who had been born almost three months premature.  Although the little girl only lived nine days, the legacy of the web site founded in her name lives on, and it's now going stronger than ever.  Users can create pages to describe their medical crisis to others.  Every day, 500,000 people visit the site where you can coordinate care, organize tasks, commit to making and bringing meals, volunteer for care during appointed times, care for pets and do household chores.  The site is being relaunched in order to encourage volunteers.  The site does not allow ads, and is supported mostly by individual donations, with 8% of their funding coming from foundations and in-kind gifts.  Another site, CarePages, offers a similar service but it's advertiser supported.  Both go a long way towards providing families one place where everyone can check in and see when care is needed and who is scheduled to do certain tasks. They "provide a good service in that they enable the loved ones or caregiver to update the site once to tell a lot of people who care what's going on.  It really does help relieve a burden of constantly having to call or text," Lee Aase, director of the Mayo Clinic's Center for Social Media told USA Today.  It's great to see that hospitals like the Mayo Clinic have social media programs.  Those with a sick family member often don't know where to turn.  And many don't want to seem like a burden so they don't ask for the help they need.  These web sites go a long way towards getting a loved one the care they need.