Internet Explorer 6 was released in August 2001. That was before the Salt Lake City Olympic Games. And, the truth is, while Goaltender will (mostly) work with your browser, it won't work or look as well as it could.
We recommend you download a newer version of Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome or Safari.
The latest and greatest news from the team at Goaltender!
Posted on Thursday July 7th, 2011 by Angie
We have recognized some minor technical glitches with Goaltender and are working to get the program back to proper order for you. While we're adjusting the mechanics, we're also going to make some improvements to the site to suit you even better. We'll make sure to update you when it's all ready!
Happy planning!
Posted on Monday January 10th, 2011 by Angie
We are pleased to have a guest blogger, Lea Greenwood, Patient Services Manager at the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Canada sharing her feelings on Goaltender.
Early in the fall of 2009, I was assessing the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Canada’s (LLSC) Young Adult Patient Navigation Program. Our program has great materials and wonderful, trained volunteers but we didn't have patients who wanted navigators.
After speaking with many of the young adult patients who had sought support from us, they said a couple of peer to peer connections were great, but they were really just looking for some help managing the journey. These individuals connect with each other electronically and they liked to map, chart, plan, and document the process they were experiencing. This allowed them to control something they describe as uncontrollable.
I was coming to terms with the necessary changes we would need to address with the Patient Navigation Program when Goaltender program cards came from Young Adult Cancer Canada (YACC). It seems whenever I want to create a new, innovative program for young adults, YACC steps forward and has it already mastered.
Goaltender has not only been a gift to me as an allied health care profession who supports patients in the community, but has also been a gift to patients. It provides newly diagnosed patients a way to describe feelings they have from being a young adult cancer patient due to temporarily leaving school or work, feeling different, and managing the fear and sadness of it all. Patients are able to network with others which alleviates feelings of being alone. Goal setting and planning strategies help with empowerment which enables the patients to stay positive and make better health-related decisions.
Being a young adult has it challenges at the best of times such as relationships, future planning, finances, independence, education/career, home ownership, family, friends, hobbies, and travel. Once diagnosed with cancer, young adults feel that they need to revisit all their goals because a wrench has been tossed into the plan. They describe helplessness and hopelessness first. Goaltender helps demystify this phase of the journey.
Patients appreciate being able to visually frame what is happening to them and determine how to move forward. Young adults are resilient and frequently need reminders that they can "do it" and "make what they want" out of life. They are not quitters! Goaltender reinforces these important values that we, as allied health professionals, try to bestow on our young adult patients.
Posted on Thursday November 25th, 2010 by Angie
We have been paying attention to your feedback and have some exciting new things ready for Goaltender users.
The first is the dashboard you see when you log in. Gone is the list of sections and in its place is a calendar to show the events and appointments you have in the next two weeks and a list of the resources you have posted so you don't have to question whether you have already added one.
We have also integrated private messaging so you can connect one-on-one with a survivor. You can see who else is out there through the list of survivors and look at their full profile to see the resources they have posted or send them a message.
The appointments section has been modified so it's easier to book recurring meetings and events. When setting a new appointment, click the box next to "schedule." A pop-up will appear and you can choose if your appointment occurs every or every other week, month, or year. Recurring appointments can go on forever or you can assign them a deadline by unchecking the "schedule forever" box and picking a calendar date.
You can also print your monthly calendar by clicking the printer icon in the top right corner and it will print all the details on the dates instead of just showing the title.
Speaking of print features, you can print your medical history to take to your appointments. Feel free to add your naturopathic treatments to your own files, or make notes about how you felt, and then share them with your health professional when applicable. All in one easy location.
Have you been setting goals? It can be tricky to keep on top of them. Now each goal has it's own 100 per cent bar where you can judge how well you're meeting the actions you set to accomplish the goal. You can also assign more actions or mark them complete or incomplete by clicking on the title of your goal. These can be modified if you make a mistake or change your mind. If you have already completed it, bypass them and choose "all done" in the links that pop up next to your goal.
We love to hear constructive criticism and kudos. Let us know what you think of the new features.
Posted on Thursday October 21st, 2010 by Angie
While it’s important for us to tell you about all the great things Goaltender can do, it’s also important to let you know about the experiences people are having with the tool to show how people are benefitting from the program.
Tanya Michel and Tim Buckland are survivors who have been using Goaltender for a little while now. They say it is easy to use, provides great organizational tools to help them keep track of all their commitments, and provides some great resources.
“I like having all my important information in one spot where it cannot get lost or forgotten. I rely on the reminder emails and valuable resources that are posted…I use Goaltender in my daily life to maintain a balance,” said Tanya.
“To me, Goaltender is a cancer organizer that incorporates my work information with my medical appointments. It is a great resource for keeping track of previous and pertinent medical information that I’m sure I would lose otherwise,” said Tim.
“It is a small way to manage your stress and calm your mind,” said Tanya. “I find that the Goals section helps me tremendously. It allows me to assess myself to get a clear understanding of what I really need. I can then create a goal and be reminded and cheered on as I obtain it.”
Goaltender isn’t just for scheduling and reminding; it is useful for building a community of like-minded individuals throughout the entire country. It offers a way to share information and stories across the miles and between Young Adult Cancer Canada events such as Retreat Yourself, Localife, and the Survivor Conference.
One of the ways we do this is through the Resources section. We upload content we deem helpful and encourage users to do the same. This increases activity and purpose aside from tracking your individual progress.
“Goaltender allows new information to be directed to you through the resource setting allowing a concise blanket of information to you without hours of research yourself,” said Tim. “This portion of the program has enabled interaction with new cancer related information and stories that I would not be in contact with otherwise.”
Goaltender is a great tool for keeping survivors on track but it is also getting some praise from medical professionals.
“I can print the information out to take with me to new appointments. It helps to not only fill out paperwork, but update the doctor on your medical history at a glance.” Tanya said. “I have actually been asked by my doctor what program I am keeping all my information in. He says that it is a very smart program and commends YACC for taking the initiative for making a program that we as patients can take on some control in our own medical story.”
“Goaltender is a phenomenal resource for people going through treatment, post-treatment, or even pre-treatment,” said Tim.
How has Goaltender helped during your treatment? Please contact us if you would like to share your story.
Posted on Thursday October 14th, 2010 by Angie
The road to recovery is paved with accomplishments and Goaltender is here to help you plan, track, and complete those goals.
One way we’re working to encourage you is to offer awards for participation. They come in the form of badges on your profile and different levels are awarded for different degrees of activity.
We have named the awards after people who have made an impact in their respective fields. For example, we have the Jobs Award for Focus because Steve Jobs has brought Apple to the forefront by focusing on the details, the Trump Vision Award since Donald Trump is proud to dream big and work until he gets there, and the Stroumboulopoulos Insight and Engagement award because Strombo is inquisitive, aware, and constructively opinionated.
I don’t want to give away all the secrets; you’ll have to log in and plan appointments, post and comment on resources, connect with other young adult cancer survivors, log your medical history, and plan and plot goals to uncover nuggets of inspiration.
Your awards are your personal achievements and are not compared to others so don't think you need to spend your days competing for the top spot. Goaltender is here to get you actively involved in your recovery, not create an additional source of stress.
We plan on releasing more awards later in the fall so don’t feel like you can stop using Goaltender once you’ve attained a bunch of accolades. Of course, the awards are just a nice perk to the feeling you’ll get when you hit the targets you have set to achieve your balance and happiness.
Happy collecting!
Posted on Tuesday October 12th, 2010 by Duncan
We built Goaltender as a walled community, a place where survivors could interact with their peers: build connections and connect about how cancer changes life. That's why the signup process won't let you through unless you've had cancer and you're in the age range that we're focused on.
One of the things we learned when we launched Goaltender was that we hadn't really considered was other groups like social workers, nurses, and doctors. We'd love it if they reffered Goaltender to some of their patients who might be able to make great use of Goaltender but we didn't really have a way to show them what happens inside the login.
The natural step was to setup a tour of what Goaltender is and how it works. Plus, it's got the added benefit of being great at showing survivors on the fence about Goaltender to have a better idea of what it might be and how it might be useful (we hope).
Lesley wrote the script & made the screenshots, Karine did the voiceover, and I tied the whole thing together. We're going to launch a few new features that we're pretty stoked about very soon. We're already planning a new version of the tour that we'll hopefully put together before Christmas. If you've got any thoughts on how we can improve it, let me know.
Posted on Tuesday October 5th, 2010 by Duncan
About a month ago we sent out a quick survey to Goaltender users. We were hoping to figure out where we could best focus our efforts for improvements to Goaltender.
We already had two improvements in mind. We knew we needed to create a way to pull statistics from how people were using Goaltender. So, we built a series of reports that pulls aggregate information about what sections of Goaltender people are using things like last week, 58% of actions were completed.
The second is one that you might have noticed- we launched a blog last week. We needed a way to explain what we're doing to move Goaltender forward, and start to explain in more detail everything we love about it. This milestone also included some big improvements to the administrative interface that will make it a whole lot easier to edit and improve some of the content inside Goaltender.
The next is one that we'd hoped to have originally launched with Goaltender back in July, but ran into a few snags- the Awards system. We'll be talking in more detail about this soon, after we've tested out most of the bugs.
One of the biggest things that really stood out from the survey we ran was that the Calendar really needs some big improvements. There's a couple ways we think this should happen. We need to make it easier to read. We need to add times for appointments- not just dates. We're hoping to put actions and goals on the Calendar too- but in a different colour so they're easy to distinguish. And, hopefully smooth over a few of the rough spots with the calendar.
And lastly- the fifth milestone I'm going to talk about today- our reading of the survey results told us that we really needed to improve the printability of Goaltender. We're going to do that by fine-tuning a whole lot of print stylesheets for the different pages. I've been personally really impressed by the summary emails and print options available within 37Signals Basecamp software.
