Grant: Health System Impact Fellowships - PostDoc Central Canada 2 year

For many seniors, navigating the healthcare system is challenging. Patient navigators are growing in popularity across Canada since there is some evidence they can improve the quality and coordination of care for chronically ill patients and their families by serving as guides on how to best access care in the hospital and the community. However, there still remains a number of questions on how patient navigators fit within the larger healthcare system, how they can best work with patients and clinical staff, and if their roles lead to an improved patient experience. My study will evaluate a novel patient navigator program at a large urban acute care hospital, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. I will conduct qualitative interviews with patients, their family members, hospital staff and relevant stakeholders to get their feedback on the patient navigator program. I will also review patients' charts to determine if there are differences in health outcomes in those patients who are supported by a navigator versus those who are not. I will interview men, women and gender-diverse participants to compare their care experiences with and without patient navigation. As a result of this study, I will be able to provide key insights on ways to improve the patient navigator role at Sunnybrook while also providing important details that other organizations interested in adopting patient navigation can refer to. The study findings will contribute to our knowledge about patient navigation in Canada by aiming to better understand the role of patient navigators for different illness populations (e.g., dementia, stroke), genders (e.g., men, women, gender-diverse people) and settings (e.g., hospital to home transitions), which will lead to tailored recommendations for different groups of seniors. This study will also result in key policy and practice insights that other organizations across Canada can refer to in implementing their own patient navigator programs.