The Academy of Oncology Nurse Navigators (AONN) 2nd Annual Navigation & Survivorship Conference was held in San Antonio, Texas, September 16-18, 2011. This was the first time AONN included posters from nurse navigators throughout the U.S. One of my favorite posters, Role of the Nurse Navigator in Lung Nodule Follow-Up, by Gean Brown, RN, OCN®, Lisa Cull, MSN, BS, RN, OCN®, and Robert Wolek, MD, is below. You can also download it via the link in the previous sentence.

It explains a Lung Quality Assurance Program in which a nurse navigator liaises with numerous providers to ensure follow-up care for patients who have lung nodules identified incidentally (e.g. a patient has to get an abdominal CT for a variety of reasons and the radiologist just so happens to identify suspicious lung nodules within the image). You might think patients are always told about incidental suspicious findings and they are always referred for further testing by the provider originally ordering the image. However, patients are frequently “missed” or “lost” this way, leading to delayed diagnoses and poorer health outcomes. This is an excellent example of how a system or process can improve communication and lead to earlier diagnoses and improved patient care and outcomes.

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