How reliable is the health information that bombards you in emails and snail mail daily? Is it trustworthy? Do you find yourself reading and have a reactive thought like, “Really? Can this be true?”
The work of patient navigators can be complex, chaotic, and at times, confusing. Cancer care is constantly evolving, which means that patient needs and challenges cannot always be solved easily. Patient navigators must be comfortable with ambiguity and should work to advocate for and utilize resources and services that best fit patient needs.
To everyone who just attended our 7th annual AONN+ conference, thank you for joining us in Las Vegas! We trust that you learned a lot from our multidisciplinary speakers, networked with one another, and had some fun while you were there. We sincerely hope you were able to take home some tools, best practices, or different approaches to use in your workplace.
I am more than excited about the launch of the official ONN certification! It is my hope that those who successfully passed this exam that was taken at the AONN+ Annual Conference in Las Vegas will share the news with others and wear their certification pin with pride!
The first gathering for the AONN+ Central Texas Oncology Local Navigator Network (LNN) held in October was a great success! Thank you to Andrea Shaw, St. David’s Navigator, who performed a tremendous job coordinating the network!
Patient navigators should work with colleagues to ensure a professional environment that fosters a community of respect, dignity, diversity, ethical integrity, and trust.
We are a little less than two weeks away from the annual convergence of navigators! The excitement mounts as the milestones of certification and metric values will be accomplished and released in 2016! In less than a decade, AONN+ has grown and listened to the needs of the membership feedback to achieve these objectives.
One of the most challenging times for cancer survivors is the transitions at different points in the care continuum: screening, diagnosis, treatment, survivorship, and end of life care. These are often the points at which patients “fall through the cracks” because they may not know what questions to ask, whom to have a conversation with, how to access the resources or services they need, or what to do next.
We have shared with our AONN+ members how the Oncology Care Model (OCM) is being used to highlight value and cost efficiency. The OCM success is based on collection of data in regard to specific outcomes. This falls in line with the Institute of Medicine (IOM) Ensuring Quality Cancer Care report, that recommends quality care to be measured using a core set of metrics.
As October comes in with all the pink fanfare and breast cancer awareness celebration, there is group that shares comments such as: "I just want to hide under the covers and check out.” And "I just don’t want to be confronted with all this pink garbage."
