Nurse navigators serve as guides for cancer patients

You don’t have to face breast can­cer alone. In addi­tion to the sup­port from fam­ily mem­bers and loved ones, breast health nurse nav­i­ga­tors are spe­cially trained pro­fes­sion­als who help alle­vi­ate the fear and con­fu­sion of a can­cer diag­no­sis by guid­ing patients through all stages of the treat­ment and recov­ery process.

Ohio­Health Grady Memo­r­ial Hos­pi­tal assigns a breast health nurse nav­i­ga­tor to every woman from the moment she receives an abnor­mal screen­ing, all the way through and post-treatment. The breast health nurse nav­i­ga­tor pro­gram has reduced the time from detec­tion of an abnor­mal­ity to diag­no­sis of breast can­cer by half that of the national average.

Patients also ben­e­fit by the added com­fort of see­ing the famil­iar face of their nurse nav­i­ga­tor every time they come to the hos­pi­tal. Breast health nurse nav­i­ga­tors are there to edu­cate patients about all aspects of their con­di­tion. With nurse nav­i­ga­tors to assist them, patients always know what the next step will be in their treat­ment and recovery.

Breast health nav­i­ga­tors help you make appoint­ments, under­stand your test results, cope with chemother­apy and talk with your physi­cians. They also con­nect you with resources for sup­port groups, wigs and other sup­plies, finan­cial assis­tance, trans­porta­tion and nutri­tional advice.

They coor­di­nate your care among the dif­fer­ent physi­cian spe­cial­ists and make sure you under­stand and fol­low your care plan. In short, they are there not only to help you sur­vive, but thrive.

Advances in can­cer treat­ment have saved mil­lions of lives, but they have also been respon­si­ble for com­plex treat­ment deci­sions and follow-up options that did not exist in the past. Some stud­ies have indi­cated that patients with nurse nav­i­ga­tors are more com­pli­ant with their care plans and have bet­ter outcomes.

Nurse nav­i­ga­tors are part of a grow­ing field of spe­cial­ists help­ing patients absorb a bar­rage of infor­ma­tion dur­ing one of the most stress­ful times in their lives when they might hear only a frac­tion of what their physi­cians tell them. If that’s the case, the nav­i­ga­tors can answer many of the ques­tions patients for­get to ask their physicians.

Emo­tional sup­port is one of the most impor­tant ser­vices pro­vided by nurse nav­i­ga­tors. Because they spend so much time with their patients, they become close to them and their fam­ily mem­bers. Patients often express fears and con­cerns with their nurse nav­i­ga­tors that they are reluc­tant to share with any­one else.

More than a dozen breast health nav­i­ga­tors work through­out the Ohio­Health sys­tem in cen­tral Ohio, and their work has been so suc­cess­ful at Grady Memo­r­ial that the hos­pi­tal intends to employ nurse nav­i­ga­tors for other can­cers besides breast cancer.

Breast can­cer diag­no­sis and treat­ment can be over­whelm­ing. Nurse nav­i­ga­tors empower patients with knowl­edge and cut through the con­fu­sion to help patients take one step at a time toward a suc­cess­ful outcome.

Octo­ber is Breast Can­cer Aware­ness Month. Sched­ule your mam­mo­gram today. Call 614–566-1111 or 877–566-1112.

Freda Clark, RN, BSN, OCN, is a cer­ti­fied oncol­ogy nurse at Ohio­Health Grady Memo­r­ial Hospital.

Posted by Grady Memorial Hospital on Oct 10 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.