Care partners have a foundational role when assisting persons with complex health needs and disabilities, including throughout the trajectory of dementia care. Care partners often serve as a critical source of information about a patient’s health history, coordinate treatments, facilitate care planning, and participate in routine and high-stakes decision-making. The competence and capacity of care partners affect the care quality, outcomes, and well-being of both the person they assist and themselves. Support of care partners has been identified as a key opportunity for achieving savings in care delivery redesign. This talk will summarize challenges and opportunities in the science and policy of care partner support and discusses strategies to sustain innovation and improvement in care, with a particular focus on consumer-oriented health information technologies.