I have a job that doesn’t feel like a job at all . . . but don’t tell my boss. I con­sult mem­bers of the Mid­west Can­cer Alliance while they estab­lish and enhance patient nav­i­ga­tion sys­tems.  A large part of the role involves coach­ing and con­nect­ing clin­i­cians with resources.

Net­work­ing with col­leagues across the coun­try through the ONS Nurse Nav­i­ga­tor Spe­cial Inter­est Group (SIG) has been a huge asset while ‘bring­ing it home’ to Kansas. In my con­sult­ing work and as mem­ber of the SIG, I receive many emails from nurse nav­i­ga­tors across the region and coun­try. The top resource con­nec­tions requested? I call them “The Big 3″:  tools, train­ing, and tracking.

Here are my favorite go-​​to resources.

Tools

Toolk­its, sam­ple forms, best prac­tice exam­ples, and job descrip­tions – woo hoo!

• Asso­ci­a­tion of Com­mu­nity Can­cer Cen­ters: Can­cer Care Patient Navigation
• Can­cer Care Coor­di­na­tion with Nurse Nav­i­ga­tors : Sg2
• Can­cer Patient Nav­i­ga­tion Toolkit – Kansas Can­cer Partnership

Train­ing

Edu­ca­tional links and train­ing programs

• C-​​Change Can­cer Patient Navigation
• Harold P. Free­man Patient Nav­i­ga­tion Institute
• Col­orado Patient Nav­i­ga­tor Training
• Breast Patient Nav­i­ga­tor Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Pro­gram (National Con­sor­tium of Breast Centers)
• Train­ing for Can­cer Care Nurse Nav­i­ga­tors and Can­cer Ser­vices Nav­i­ga­tors – North­west Geor­gia Regional Can­cer Coali­tion and Blue Ridge AHEC
• Edu­Care: Breast Health Navigation
• The George Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­sity Cen­ter for the Advance­ment of Can­cer Sur­vivor­ship, Nav­i­ga­tion, and Policy

Track­ing

The all-​​important outcomes

• National Patient Nav­i­ga­tion Lead­er­ship Sum­mit – Can­cer Spe­cial Supplement

And as an added bonus, here are my favs for net­work­ing. Like them on Face­book. Fol­low them on Twit­ter. Post to their dis­cus­sion boards. Con­tact their newslet­ter edi­tors and sub­mit arti­cles. Fol­low their blogs.

• ONS Nurse Nav­i­ga­tor SIG – Be sure to check out arti­cles and mem­ber spot­lights in the Vir­tual Community.
• Acad­emy of Oncol­ogy Nurse Nav­i­ga­tors – I love the expert blogs.
• National Coali­tion of Oncol­ogy Nurse Nav­i­ga­tors – The List­serv is a great connector.
• Penn­syl­va­nia Patient Nav­i­ga­tor Net­work – This group loves col­lab­o­ra­tion! I want to be them when I grow up. They have an excel­lent Face­book resource as well.

So what about it? Have you found a great resource you would like to share with other nurse nav­i­ga­tors? I’d love to hear from you in the comments!