- blogs.vancouversun.com/2011/10/12/my-date-with-health-system-leaders-a-plea-for-patient-navigators/
- blogs.vancouversun.com/2011/02/24/patient-navigators-the-greatest-service-in-health-care-youve-never-heard-of-until-now/
- vancouversun.com/health/rewards patient navigation Alberta/4334396/story.html
- https://twitter.com/#!/MedicineMatters/media/slideshow?url=pic.twitter.com/H7vDWxy3
List date(s) this work was published or aired.
Feb. 26, Feb. 28. March 1, 2, and 3
Provide a brief synopsis of the story or stories, including any significant findings.
The Patient Navigation series was a project which explored a new paradigm in Canadian health care which had never before been covered in such a comprehensive manner by any North American media organization. Due to the broad scope, the research spanned several months and involved trips to 12 cities in five provinces. In each jurisdiction, I conducted interviews with health professionals, health system leaders and the patients who shared their extremely personal experiences that they had with navigators, who are usually highly specialized nurses. When face to face interviews were not possible, I conducted them by telephone, as was the case with subjects in Nova Scotia and New York. Travel and other expenses were offset by a $20,000 health journalism grant I was awarded in a 2010 health journalism competition sponsored by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. I did about half the photography myself. Since all the research was original, the five-day series was an ambitious project meant to shed light on a new approach for improving patient care. Since it was the first time this innovation in health care has ever been explored by a media organization in North America, after it was published, the Journal of Oncology Navigation and Survivorship asked to reprint the series. (Copyright issues are pending). After spending so many months on this project, I proved my hypothesis – that patient navigators are the greatest innovation in health care that very few have ever heard about – until the Vancouver Sun series! I interviewed an assortment of patients, including those with cancer and Aboriginals. I met with nurses, social workers and others who are providing the navigation help. Since the concept is so new, and most patients do not have the benefit of a professional or even amateur navigator, I also included practical information about how to be your own navigator and resources for patients who are hitting obstacles in their patient journeys. There were numerous elements to the series. For example, fact boxes described exactly what navigators do and the benefits of them. Another factbox told patients how to complain about their care. The series contained a multimedia component as well – an interview with the CEO of the BC Cancer Agency and also a narrated slideshow of all the people I interviewed. I also did a blog with an unusually personal statement about why this project was so important. (see website URL bleow). The series was published in most of the Postmedia dailies across Canada. In the Vancouver Sun, the series was published over five days, on 11 pages. There have been many positive outcomes to this series. We published a page of unanimously positive letters to the editor (representing only a fraction of the feedback we got), and I was asked to be the moderator and lead plenary speaker at the Health Care Leaders Association conference this fall. The annual meeting is a gathering of all the health system leaders in BC and the session was held so that leaders could plan how to add more navigators to the system.
Explain types of documents, data or Internet resources used. Were FOI or public records act requests required? How did this affect the work?
North American nursing and medical journals, hospital and other medical centre websites, hospital surveys, numerous reports which explored navigation before it was ever offered and reports evaluating its performance.
Explain types of human sources used.
Patients, health professionals, hospital and health system administrators, health researchers.
Results:
I proved my hypothesis that patient navigators are improving patient satisfaction, quality of care and health outcomes. The series led to my invitation to address the plenary session of the Health Care Leaders Association conference where those running the health system would plan how to expand patient navigation. I have also been invited to speak to various colleges and university classes and medical centres are trying to find ways to expand navigation. This May, I am a featured speaker at the Cafe Scientifique, a federal government sponsored forum, where I have been asked to present the evidence for navigation.
Follow-up (if any). Have you run a correction or clarification on the report or has anyone come forward to challenge its accuracy? If so, please explain.
no.
Advice to other journalists planning a similar story or project.
This was an expensive project as it required travel across Canada, to five provinces, over six months. Since newspapers in Canada no longer allow reporters to spend lots of time and money on big projects, it was critical to secure expenses another way; through a grant from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research. It was necessary to plan for each trip far in advance, and to ensure patients willing to speak about their health problems were secured well in advance. As this was the first time the subject of patient navigators had ever been tackled in such a comprehensive way, I was essentially doing research that no journalist – and few academic or health researchers – had ever done before.So hypotheses and questions had to be carefully framed and pursued.