Click here for the Dr. Harold Freeman’s presentation
Click here for photos from the seminar
When you’re diagnosed with cancer, your life is taken off course on a journey to a strange place. Because it’s not all smooth sailing, it helps to have guidance to weather the storms. To help steer cancer patients in the right direction, while providing support and encouragement, Georgia’s medical community is training healthcare professionals and volunteers as Patient Navigators.
They may work for a hospital, a public health department, or in a community setting with patients who have breast, lung, colorectal, prostate, head and neck or other types of cancer. In any case, Patient Navigation has been shown through evidence-based research to make a difference in patient health and wellbeing.
Dr. Harold Freeman, Associate Director of the National Cancer Institute and Director of the Ralph Lauren Center for Cancer Treatment and Prevention in Harlem, New York, is credited with spearheading the development of the first breast health patient navigator program in 1990. On Thursday, July 10, he addressed cancer care professionals and survivors in Atlanta on Patient Navigation: Improving the quality of cancer control. The program was presented by the Georgia Cancer Coalition and the Georgia Cancer Foundation and sponsored by Pfizer.
Dr. Freeman initiated Patient Navigation as part of his personal crusade to improve medical care for the less fortunate. His goal was to reduce the race and income-related disparity in healthcare. Using free and low-cost screening mammography; improved outreach and public education; and patient navigation to promote treatment without delay, Harlem Hospital saw dramatically improved results.
Similar results have been found in other communities, including in Atlanta. Research done at Grady Hospital showed that community education and internal navigation programs could lead to a significant shift in stage at diagnosis of breast cancer among African American women, with a doubling in the proportion of cases caught at the earliest stage. Dr. Sheryl Gabram-Mendola, an Emory University researcher and surgical oncologist at the Emory Winship Cancer Institute is Director of the AVON Comprehensive Breast Center at the Georgia Cancer Center for Excellence at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta and a Georgia Cancer Coalition Scholar.
"This success story is a wonderful example of how Georgia cancer patients benefit from the efforts of the Georgia Cancer Coalition to recruit nationally prominent researchers to come to our institutions. Dr. Gabram's work was published in a prestigious national scientific journal, but the beneficiaries of her research were the patients at Grady whose breast cancers were found earlier, vastly increasing their prospects for survival," says Bill Todd, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Georgia Cancer Coalition.
Attendees at the Patient Navigation event included representatives from the Department of Human Resources, the Centers for Disease Control, the Regional Cancer Coalitions of Georgia, the Georgia Center for Oncology Research and Education, the Georgia Society for Clinical Oncology, the Healthcare Georgia Foundation, American Cancer Society, and representatives from several hospitals, survivor organizations and community service programs.
“Patient Navigation is a key component of Georgia’s State Cancer Plan for Comprehensive Cancer Control as well as the state clinical alliance working with St. Joseph’s/Candler Health System in Savannah on the National Cancer Institute’s Community Cancer Center’s Program, “ says Angie Patterson, COO of the Georgia Cancer Coalition. “ The concept has received national attention in the policymaking and health care communities. We are delighted that Dr. Freeman was here to address the state cancer community and support out efforts in Patient Navigation.”
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