Navigation

The National Navigation Acuity Team – a collaborative initiative between AONN+ and Astellas – is developing an acuity tool to optimize patient care.

The tenets of navigation have significantly improved oncology patient care – and nurses in other specialties have taken note. Here’s what’s in their future.

The National Acuity Initiative presents their findings from a scoping review of the literature. These results informed the creation of case studies on which the acuity tool will be tested and validated.

On a daily basis, navigators are asked to provide many varied, and sometimes very novel, services for their patients, according to Penny Daugherty, RN, MS, OCN, ONN-CG, an oncology nurse navigator at the Northside Hospital Cancer Institute in Atlanta.

At the recent AONN+ Annual Conference, experts in oncology navigation convened virtually with conference attendees to offer their insights in furthering the efficacy of navigation. This monograph will review the proceedings from 4 key sessions covering the timely topics of telehealth, mental health and the oncology patient, prehabilitation and rehabilitation, and value-based oncology care.

The American Cancer Society aims to implement navigation programs abroad through the BEACON Initiative.

When it comes to cancer care, organizations tend to define value in terms of objective factors like efficacy, toxicity, and cost. But according to Elizabeth Franklin, PhD, MSW, executive director of the Cancer Policy Institute at the Cancer Support Community in Washington, DC, patients tend to define value differently when it comes to their care.

Navigation services can improve timeliness to treatment and the patient experience – an important factor for patients during a vulnerable time in their lives.

Prioritizing quality over quantity of care, value-based care and the alternative payment models it incorporates are complicated concepts to master. A primer for navigators dispelled some of this complexity.