Productivity of patient navigators at a safety-net hospital in Chicago

Background: Since 2005, a foundation dedicated to improving women's lives has funded a patient navigation program for patients with abnormal breast imaging at a Chicago safety-net hospital. The role of a Patient Navigator is loosely defined and experience levels vary widely. However, the main goals of a navigation program are to improve follow-up, decrease times between services and eliminate barriers to making appointments.

Methods: Between July and December 2010 we listed the predominant services provided and asked each of our 3 navigators to track the number of minutes each task took. We then summed the time for each task.

Results: During this time n=2174 patients were navigated and n=6500 encounters occurred. Each navigator saw about 10 patients per day worked. Navigators spend about 15% of their time doing project related tasks such as data entry, but the remaining time is devoted to navigating patients in various ways. 12% of their time is spent providing education, 18% is spent providing medical assistance, 18% is spent escorting patients to appointments or for moral support during a biopsy and 14% is spent assisting with scheduling appointments or obtaining referrals.

Conclusions: The Navigators spend about 20-30 minutes with each patient they encounter and they add an enormous benefit to patients in busy clinic settings when staff resources are limited. In addition, since so much time is spent providing breast health and or medical information to patients, there may be implications for ensuring that the navigators are well trained to triage these issues.