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National Cancer Navigation

The White House Calls for a Childhood Cancer Service

Earlier this year, the Biden-Harris administration announced a handful of new actions relating to the Cancer Moonshot goals to reduce cancer mortality rates and improve the lives of patients and survivors.

The first action listed is the creation of CC-DIRECT: Childhood Cancer: Data Integration for Research, Education, Care, and Clinical Trials — an initiative to support children, adolescents, and young adults throughout their cancer journey. Among other services, CC-DIRECT would provide patient navigation support to families, facilitate research participation, and establish a portable, shareable, standardized cancer health record.

The National Cancer Institute has been tasked with creating CC-DIRECT, and since April 2023, NCI has been laying the groundwork with their National Cancer Plan. Although their efforts and strategies are primarily focused on research, they have extended a call to action for contributions from across different sectors.

7 Underlying Problems in the US Cancer Space

Our research aims to organize cancer journey pain points and underlying problems to support decision-makers in evaluating the potential impact of solutions they devise. This work reflects what our team has learned so far and is not a comprehensive representation of all aspects of the cancer experience. Feedback and suggestions are welcome at CancerNavigator@goinvo.com.

Disparities exist across all of these problem areas, disproportionately impacting individuals from low-income backgrounds, minority populations, and rural areas, as well as those with disabilities, language barriers, and cultural differences. Services must be designed around these communities' experiences from the outset if they are to be successful at closing the gaps. As we consider these problems, it’s helpful to identify the focus of a given approach: is it mostly intended to address the underlying, upstream problems, or the more immediate, downstream pain points?

The implementation of a national patient navigation service like CC-DIRECT could promptly address numerous pain points in cancer care, and research strongly highlights the significance and impact of human touch in patient care. In fact, the genesis of patient navigation resulted from a 1989 report by the American Cancer Society that found that poor cancer patients faced substantially greater barriers in obtaining care and often did not seek care they couldn’t afford. The following year, the Harlem Hospital Center implemented the first patient navigation program for underserved cancer patients, showing that patient navigation could dramatically improve outcomes.

By also expanding our attention to underlying problems like delays in detection and diagnosis and the siloed nature of health systems, we can decrease the volume of manual responsibilities for navigators and maximize the impact and scalability of patient navigation.

Reimagining Patient Navigation for Cancer

This timeline outlines how cancer navigation could look across multiple services, each of which is a direct response to existing issues with quality and experience of care for patients. These services include:

  • Digital Navigation Tool
    Mobile application for facility referral, record sharing, and care logistics
  • Patient Navigator
    Designated patient advocate who arranges logistics, emotional support, and resources on eligibility
  • Financial Navigator
    A service that breaks down costs transparency, determine eligibility for financial aid
  • SDOH Accommodations
    Free transportation and lodging as needed for patients traveling for care
  • Patient Education
    Resources to help patients further their understanding of their health
  • Standard Health Record
    A longitudinal, shareable electronic health record

See our progress since November 2022

Cancer Navigation Process High Level V1 pdf
Cancer Navigation Process Breakdown V1 pdf

Github Repo

Have feedback? Send it to CancerNavigator@goinvo.com

Authors

Claire Lin
Tala Habbab
Sharon Lee
Craig McGinley
Samantha Wuu
Juhan Sonin

Contributors

Grace Cordovano, PhD
Wendi Cross, PhD
Daniel Ngo

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References

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