Oncology Nursing Society, the Association of Oncology Social Work, and the National Association of Social Workers joint position on the role of oncology nursing and oncology social work in patient navigation.

摘要

Building on the work of C-Change (2009), patient navigation in the cancer care setting is defined by the Oncology Nursing Society (ONS), the Association of Oncology Social Work (AOSW), and the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) as individualized assistance offered to patients, families, and caregivers to help overcome healthcare system barriers and facilitate timely access to quality health and psychosocial care from prediagnosis through all phases of the cancer experience. This definition is modified from the original C-Change definition by using the term "quality health" instead of "quality medical." Patient navigation services provided by trained lay navigators were introduced in the early 1990s to ensure access to cancer screening, increase efficacy, and reduce delays of cancer diagnoses that particularly affect poor and underserved populations (C-Change, 2009; Newman-Horm, 2005).