Marian E. Gilmore, RN, OCN

Patient and nurse navigators play an important role in the care of patients from screening through treatment and into survivorship.

A case study demonstrating the role of the navigator in improving efficiency in the clinic which positively impacts the utilization of resources, patient satisfaction, and timeliness of treatment.

The authors present a case demonstrating the responsibilities of the navigator on the multidisciplinary team to include ensuring timeliness of care, care coordination, addressing barriers to care, program evaluation, and process improvement.

The authors present a case study in resourceful navigation in a rural setting.

The authors discuss how nurse navigators, patient navigators, and social workers can collaborate to fill vital roles in direct patient psychosocial care and develop processes and procedures that improve delivery of that care.

The National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship (NCCS) was founded in 1986 to make cancer patients view themselves as survivors, not victims, and to address the many issues that patients encounter during and beyond cancer.

The authors present a case study highlighting the importance of patients’ physical and mental preparedness for the recommended medical treatments.

In this community outreach example, the daunting challenges of treatment, and the impact on quality of life, drive the questions, “How can we better serve these patients?” and “Is there anything we can do to prevent or detect head and neck cancers earlier?”