Journal Article

Navigation delivery models and roles of navigators in primary care: a scoping literature review

Feather, Janice, Lam, Annie, Cleghorn, Laura, Nicholl, Jennifer, Carter, Nancy, Valaitis, Ruta K.

2018

Overview

Background Systems navigation provided by individuals or teams is emerging as a strategy to reduce barriers to care. Complex clients with health and social support needs in primary care experience fragmentation and gaps in service delivery. There is great diversity in the design of navigation and a lack of consensus on navigation roles and models in primary care. Methods We conducted a scoping literature review following established methods to explore the existing evidence on system navigation in primary care. To be included, studies had to be published in English between 1990 and 2013, and include a navigator or navigation process in a primary care setting that involves the community- based social services beyond the health care system. Results We included 34 papers in our review, most of which were descriptive papers, and the majority originated in the US. Most of the studies involved studies of individual navigators (lay person or nurse) and were developed to meet the needs of specific patient populations. We make an important contribution to the literature by highlighting navigation models that address both health and social service navigation. The emergence and development of system navigation signals an important shift in the recognition that health care and social care are inextricably linked especially to address the social determinants of health. Conclusions There is a high degree of variance in the literature, but descriptive studies can inform further innovation and development of navigation interventions in primary care.

• Publisher: BioMed Central,BioMed Central Ltd,Springer Nature B.V,BMC
• Subject: Cancer / Caregivers / Community Health Services / Complex patients / Delivery of Health Care / Health Administration / Health care / Health care access / Health care policy / Health Informatics / Health promotion / Health services / Humans / Injury prevention / Innovations / Librarians / Literature reviews / Management / Medical screening / Medicine / Medicine & Public Health / Models of care / Navigation / Navigator / Nursing Research / Organization / Patient navigation / Patient Navigation - methods / Patients / Primary care / Primary Health Care / Public Health / Research Article / Roles / Scoping literature review / Segmentation / Services / Social factors / Social services / Social services delivery / Social Support / Social Work / structure and delivery of healthcare / System navigation