Nurse Navigator - Head & Neck Clinic, Highlands Ranch (Part-time, 0.8 FTE)

University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

Department: Community Practice

Job Title: Nurse Navigator - Head & Neck Clinic, Highlands Ranch (Part-time, 0.8 FTE)

Position #: 00851560 – Requisition #: 40728

Job Summary:

The Nurse Navigator (NN) will be a member of the care team that will be focused on providing personalized one-on-one patient care. The NN assesses and evaluates patient conditions, and then plans, implements, provides, and documents patient care in a manner that follows professional nursing standards and outlined practices.  The NN will assist in expediting the process for evaluation of clinic patients through a multidisciplinary team approach, coordination of services, and scheduling exams, optimizing patient care outcomes. The NN will help the patient navigate clinic visits, follow-up testing, diagnostics, labs, and other services, coordinate care to reduce gaps in understanding, counsel, and educate patients and families, and ensure high-quality patient outcomes.

Key Responsibilities:

Patient Care (50%)

• Facilitates patient intake by phone, email, or online through Epic MHC.

• Provides high-touch and high-quality personalized patient navigation.

• Works closely with patients and families throughout the full continuum of care.

• Triages, coordinates care, and orders appropriate patient testing under University of Colorado School of Medicine protocols and guidance with a heavy focus on managing needs within and outside of the organization to prevent unnecessary ER visits, hospital admissions, and/or readmissions.

• Acts as Liaison between patient and clinical staff, administration, physicians, managed care companies, community/external resources to address the health needs of patients by assessing clinical, emotional, spiritual, psychosocial, and financial barriers to care. Once identified, works with the care team to find and/or create a plan to overcome barriers for successful health outcomes

• Demonstrates effective communication with patients, families, peers, members of the multidisciplinary healthcare team, and community organizations and resources.

• Collaborates directly with primary physician and care team to help educate/reinforce specific disease processes, treatments, and recommendations to properly diagnose, treat, and mitigate problems based on the multidisciplinary care plan.

• Facilitates resolution to patient care gaps and follows up by both proactively reaching out to patients/families and continuously addressing direct phone calls and messages from patients.

• Questions and prevents duplicative, fragmented, or unnecessary use of resources/services. Questions, tests/procedures for which the purpose is unclear.

• Follows up on patient progress relative to subsequent testing, ED visits, hospitalizations, and ensures post-acute plan when needed.  Monitors and reports on outcome measures.

• Participates in clinical operations with patients, rooming patients, taking vitals, and supporting patient needs as assigned. 

• Assists the physician and other providers with procedures as n