NURSE NAVIGATOR

• Facilitates and assesses patient needs upon initial encounter and periodically throughout navigation, matching unmet needs with appropriate services and referrals and support services, such as dietitians, providers, social work, and financial services.
• Facilitates timely scheduling of appointments, diagnostic testing, and procedures to expedite the plan of care and to promote continuity of care.
• Implements risk assessments and monitors healthcare pathways with multidisciplinary teams and intervenes when necessary to improve timeliness of care.
• Actively participates in a wide range of performance improvement activities by recommending and leading improvements in patient safety-related processes at unit or cancer service line level.
• Ensures appropriate data is collected and submitted to appropriate databases for service lines supported.
• Identifies potential and realized barriers to care (e.g., transportation, childcare, elder care, housing, language, culture, literacy, role disparity, psychosocial, employment, financial, insurance) and facilitates referrals as appropriate to mitigate barriers.

Resource and Patient and Caregiver Education

• Serves as a clinical resource for complex and/or highly specialized patient care situations to patient care providers and other health care professionals within SOM and UTHealth RGV and in the community.
• Educates the patient and caregiver on disease-specific guidelines and treatment options to enable patient-led treatment decisions.
• Educates and/or facilitates patients and caregivers on introduction to program, clinical trial information, resource referrals, molecular and genetic testing.
• Teaches others to critically think by verbally expressing rationale for decisions and following up by coaching and critiquing colleagues thought processes in complex situations.
• Communicates in an active, positive and effective manner to all health care team members, mentors other staff in effective verbal, non-verbal and written communication.
• Creates a climate free of fear by communicating and questioning, encouraging, and supporting others to do the same.
• Performs other duties as assigned.

• Four (4) years professional nursing experience to include two (2) years oncology nursing, or
• Two (2) years nursing experience in an oncology setting with Advanced Practice Registered Nurse degree.