Oncology Nurse Navigator (Breast)

Position Overview

Oncology Nurse Navigator (ONN) serves as an initial point of contact for patients and their families to direct and facilitate their cancer care experience. Navigators guide patients, facilitate access to services and patient-health care provider relationships, and coordinate care to assure timely and effective transitions during the patient’s course of assessment, treatment, and survivorship.

The primary purpose of the ONN is to:

• Remove barriers to care and link patients to resources that enable them to complete treatment and improve their quality of life.
• Serve as a resource during the patient’s transitions of care to facilitate timely access to services and care.
• Navigators facilitate communication between and among the patient and providers, and act as a liaison with the health care team on behalf of the patient.

Duties of the Oncology Nurse Navigator include, but are not limited to the following:

• New patient intake – helps accelerate evaluations of new patients and facilitates coordination of patient testing and care scheduling.
• Work within a cancer specific disease management team to identify and eliminate barriers to care from time of diagnosis through survivorship, with the primary emphasis on intake, assessment and diagnosis, and the initial course of care and treatment.
• Follow patients through their (initial) course of care- see patients in multiple areas (cancer center, radiation, hospital). Ensure newly diagnosed patients in hospital/ED are transitioned to outpatient areas.
• In coordination with members of the disease management team, assist in the completion of cancer survivorship care plans.
• Provide patient/family education and explanations about the course of assessment and care.
• Participates in and contributes expertise to activities and functions that strengthen the cancer program (including, but not limited to continuous program and quality improvement, relationship building and cancer program marketing strategies, plans, develops, and implements patient centered programs as part of disease management team, participating in community screening and community cancer awareness activities, etc.).
• Participates and provides support to the Disease Management Team and Academic (teaching and research) goals of SBM by coordinates disease specific tumor boards, involvement in and contributions to CME activities, maintains disease tracking database, etc.
• Assists in and contributes to strengthening the oncology clinical research activities, maintains knowledge of inclusion/exclusion criteria for disease specific clinical trials, and explains clinical trial information to patients and families with the goal of educating patients about the benefit of participation and the contribution trials could have to the course of their treatment and survivorship.
• Collects data, documents and provides reports to DMT including identified health disparities, description of navigation process, populations served and barriers identified.
• Actively seeks and participates in educational opportunities, both formal and informal, to achieve and maintain knowledge and skill related to job responsibilities.

Qualifications

Required:

• NYS RN license.
• Five (5) years acute nursing experience, with minimum 3 years in oncology.
• Bachelor’s degree in nursing.

Preferred:

• Masters in Nursing.
• Certified Oncology Nurse.
• Previous experience in case management, quality management, and/or patient education.
• Previous experience with patients with Breast Cancer preferred.