Navigator Guide: Walking With a Patient Down the Early Breast Cancer Path

Supported by

The Navigator Guide: Walking With a Patient Down the Early Breast Cancer Path is a resource that oncology nurses and navigators can use to assist patients and caregivers in the fight against early-stage breast cancer. Oncology nurses and navigators guide patients through their treatment journey from time of diagnosis into survivorship, providing education, resources, and support.

This educational tool illustrates the most common steps in the early breast cancer journey, including treatment expectations, key therapy considerations, and survivorship and surveillance management, to set patient expectations and foster shared decision-making.

This resource examines each milestone and touchpoint of the early breast cancer journey, interspersed with navigation considerations and common questions patients may ask. It is intended to cultivate meaningful conversations between patients and their oncology navigators, arming patients with self-advocacy tools.

We encourage healthcare professionals to use this guide to complement their conversations with patients to enable shared decision-making, highlight potential clinical and psychosocial challenges, including strategies to address these challenges and observe best practices in navigating breast cancer patients through their early breast cancer treatment journey.

The front side of the resource dives into a time of diagnosis and supportive care needed throughout the cancer continuum. In contrast, the back side explores the treatment planning process, including treatment options, the importance of shared decision-making, and the survivorship phase of the continuum.

In addition to providing a roadmap of diagnosis and treatment expectations, this visual aid offers digital access to additional patient-focused resources, including psychosocial and financial support and high-risk early breast cancer educational resources. These selected resources, available via QR code, outline patient support services that patients and caregivers can discover and lean on throughout their unique breast cancer treatment journey.

The navigation professional can also view resources specific to the healthcare role to further complement their navigation techniques in educating and supporting their patients.

Implementation of this resource is intended to occur at the time of diagnosis for maximal effect and utilized throughout each touchpoint of the treatment journey. However, it can be introduced throughout the early-stage breast cancer continuum as an additional benefit to the patient in understanding their treatment journey.

We hope this roadmap enhances the educational conversation between the navigator and patient by setting treatment expectations and prompting patient self-advocacy. We encourage oncology nurses and navigators to use this tool in everyday practice to better support their patients and caregivers during this early breast cancer journey.