Nurse Navigators

Cancer Center Nurse Navigator Program

Through the Nurse Navigator Program, cancer patients at Greenville Hospital System Cancer Center’s oncology multidisciplinary centers (MDC) have a personal guide to lead them throughout the diagnosis and treatment process.

The Cancer Center program is unique in that it is staffed with oncology-certified nurses, specializes in several types of cancers, occurs in real-time, and the nurse navigator is physically available to the patient and family.

The role of the nurse navigator:

  • Ease the burden on patients and families

  • Collaborate with all members of the medical team

  • Help patients understand their diagnosis and available treatment options

  • Watch closely for any problems that may arise over the course of treatment and recovery

  • Act as clinicians, care coordinators, educators and counselors for patients and families

  • Improve patient outcomes through education, support and monitoring

  • Coordinate care with other health-care providers such as pharmacists, dieticians, social workers, case managers and counselors

  • Help the patient and family connect with existing community resources

Click here to view a recent article in The Greenville News on Nurse Navigators.

The Nurse Navigator Program and the MDC

Nurse navigators work with patients who are treated through the Cancer Center’s Multidisciplinary Centers (MDCs), a collaborative protocol that allows a patient to accomplish in a single two-to-three-hour visit what previously may have taken weeks.

Under the collaborative format of the MDC:

  • A patient’s case is reviewed pre-visit by a team of specialists, including a surgeon, medical oncologist, radiation oncologist, radiologist, pathologist, and nurse navigator

  • The team meets to discuss treatment options, determine the best course of action and recommend a treatment plan

  • A physician and nurse navigator then present the recommendations to the patient

  • The patient, in consultation with the referring physician, then decides how to proceed

  • The nurse navigator will be available to that patient and the patient’s family through the entire course of treatment and recovery.

Although the Cancer Center provides treatment for all forms of cancer, the highly collaborative MDCs focus on melanoma-sarcoma and cancers of the lung, brain, prostate, and gastrointestinal tract.