ConnectShareCare was very helpful in moral support, good advice, and connecting me with people going through similar things.
Jay, caregiver and ConnectShareCare volunteer mentorCoping with illness, caregiving, or loss can be one of life’s most isolating experiences—but it doesn’t have to be. Dartmouth Health’s ConnectShareCare, a free online platform, is providing a lifeline to hundreds of individuals facing these challenges by offering connection, community, and compassion.
Launched in May 2021, the platform has grown to more than 400 members, recently expanded the discussion groups for people experiencing long COVID and is planning more groups for managing long-term illnesses.
Designed by a team of care partners, patients, healthcare providers, and researchers from The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice, ConnectShareCare supports caregivers, individuals with serious or long-term illnesses, and those grieving the loss of loved ones by offering online discussion boards, personal story sharing, crisis resources, and in-person event listings.
“ConnectShareCare is not about providing medical advice and treatment recommendations,” said Sandra L. Knowlton-Soho, RN, program manager of ConnectShareCare in the Dartmouth Health Office of Care Experience. “It is about people with lived experience talking to each other about their own frustrations or what has—or has not—worked for them. It’s about people being able to say, ‘I'm so glad to have found a group of people that make me feel like I'm not so alone.’”
Studies show that caregiving often results in chronic stress and can compromise a caregiver’s mental and physical health, leading to physical and psychological strain, as well as depression. Grief, too, can have a debilitating impact on health. But research also shows that online support groups, like those on ConnectShareCare, can help.
Jay, a longtime partner and caregiver to his late soulmate Meredith, turned to ConnectShareCare after she passed from complications of treatment for brain cancer. He credits the platform’s “Active Caring” and “Grief and Loss” support communities with helping him find hope and healing.
“I'd never done anything like that before, but ConnectShareCare was very helpful in moral support, good advice, and connecting me with people going through similar things,” Jay said. “I've now made a lot of friends, friends who have gone through similar things.”
Jay is now a volunteer mentor on the platform, reviewing the discussion board’s emails daily and offering support to others navigating similar paths, “because I know how valuable showing understanding to someone who is struggling can be, whether because of illness or loss.”
The platform is part of the Promise Partnership Coproduction Learning Health System—a strategic partnership between The Dartmouth Institute and the Office of Care Experience in the Value Institute at Dartmouth Health.
To join or learn more about ConnectShareCare, visit connectsharecare.org.
About Dartmouth Health
Dartmouth Health, New Hampshire’s only academic health system and largest private employer, serves patients across New England. Dartmouth Health provides access to more than 2,300 providers in nearly every area of medicine, delivering care at its flagship hospital, Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC) in Lebanon, NH. Its network of hospitals, outpatient centers, clinics and home care facilities, spans a broad geographical area. Year after year, DHMC is named the #1 hospital in New Hampshire by U.S. News & World Report, and is consistently recognized for high performance in numerous clinical specialties and procedures. Dartmouth Health includes Dartmouth Cancer Center, northern New England’s only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers and one of less than than 60 total nationally; Dartmouth Health Children’s, which includes the state’s only children’s hospital (Children’s Hospital at DHMC/CHaD) and more than 20 locations around the region; eight member hospitals in Lebanon, Keene, Claremont, Hampstead, and New London, NH, and Windsor and Bennington, VT; Dartmouth Health Home Care; Dartmouth Health Connected Care Center for Telehealth, serving patients as far away as Texas; and more than 30 primary and multi-specialty clinics across New Hampshire and Vermont. Through its partnership with Dartmouth College, Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine and the White River Junction VA Medical Center, Dartmouth Health trains nearly 400 medical residents and fellows annually and performs cutting-edge research and clinical trials with international impact. Dartmouth Health and its more than 16,000 employees are committed to serving the healthcare needs of everyone in the communities it serves and to providing every patient with exceptional, state-of-the-art, personalized care. Learn more at dartmouth-health.org.