Our navigators improve the quality of life for patients and families and we need your help to ensure that this important resource continues for Albertans.
Because of investments in the Alberta Cancer Foundation’s Patient Navigator Program, rural patients and families who have used the program have reported that navigators contribute to a sense of stability and security, ensure timely access to information required for decision-making, co-ordinate additional supports in their communities and offer individualized care to meet specific areas of need. This program is estimated to save the health system at least $1 million by alleviating visits to family physicians and emergency rooms for non-emergent issues. This program gets accessed over 15,000 times annually.
The Alberta Cancer Foundation is also committed to a provincial Adolescent and Young Adult (AYA) Patient Navigator Program.
Each year in Alberta, nearly 300 new cases of cancer are diagnosed in adolescent and young adults, aged 15-29 (AYAs). Falling between the dividing line of pediatrics and adults, this group of patients faces unique challenges. Unfortunately, those needs of AYA patients are often unmet. Not only can patients feel isolated, but without the proper supportive resources who truly understand their unique needs, they have nowhere to turn.
The AYA Patient Navigation program specializes in supporting this group as they navigate their cancer journey both inside and outside the health-care system and works to enhance overall patient care by ensuring that their distinctive needs are supported from diagnosis to survivorship or in some cases palliative care.