Cancer Care Member Navigation Program
Our comprehensive, end-to-end program combines personalized support and a digital platform to deliver a more connected, empowered experience for health plan members living with cancer.
Align members, families and providers around the care plan, the member’s goals, and changes in their health.
Help members take on the life-altering changes that come with a cancer diagnosis so they can focus on their health and quality of life.
Enable providers to focus on their patients’ complex medical needs while navigators provide a layer of day-to-day support.
Transforming the cancer care experience for all
From improved quality of care to higher member satisfaction and better adherence to treatment, care navigation programs have shown several benefits for people with cancer. Navigation also helps prevent avoidable hospitalizations, emergency department visits and unwanted or unwarranted care.
Evolent’s comprehensive care navigation program brings together personalized support with a digital platform to deliver these benefits at scale.
Our approach: High-touch plus high-tech
The program has two patient-facing components.
Personalized support from a care navigator
Navigators can assist members with cancer in several ways, such as coordinating appointments, managing symptoms and side effects, planning for emergencies, advance care planning, and connecting to resources like support groups. They can also help members adjust to many other potential impacts of a cancer diagnosis on their lives — emotional, social, professional and financial.
A digital cancer care management platform
Members also have the option to use the Careology app or website to support their physical and mental wellbeing. Designed by oncologists, Careology empowers individuals — for example, by helping them understand and monitor their own symptoms and side effects, track their medications, and get answers to common questions. They can also keep a journal, find recipes for people with cancer, and share how they are feeling with family, friends and their care navigator. Members who have smart watches can link with Careology to track their steps, heart rate, oxygen saturation and blood pressure.
Benefits for members, providers and health plans
A more connected experience benefits everyone across the cancer care ecosystem. Here’s how.
Members
A cancer diagnosis brings a whirlwind of emotions, questions and tasks. Care navigators can help ease the load, enabling health plan members to save their time and energy to focus on their physical and mental wellbeing. Among the intended benefits:
- Help selecting a high-quality oncology care team.
- A care plan that reflects the member’s stated goals and preferences.
- A better understanding of what to expect and how to prepare for it, such as their first cancer treatment.
- Guidance for how to respond to symptoms and side effects.
- Preparation for pivotal conversations with their providers.
- Help finding community resources, such as financial and transportation assistance programs for which patients may be eligible.
Timely access to palliative and hospice care, if needed.
Providers
Our care navigation program can offer day-to-day support of patients with cancer. Among the intended benefits:
- More time devoted to complex clinical care due to care navigators handling time-intensive tasks such as care coordination, cross-provider communication, documentation support and more.
- Higher patient adherence to treatment plans, supporting better health outcomes.
- Insights into their patients’ goals and preferences.
- Greater awareness of challenges their patients are facing in between visits.
Additional guidance for their patients experiencing symptoms and side effects, so they know when to manage at home, visit the clinic or go to the emergency department.
Health plans
Our care navigation program enables plans to support coordinated, high-quality care across the member journey. Among the intended benefits:
- Early identification of members who may benefit from the program, using predictive risk algorithms
- More “upstream” interventions to get members on the best possible path.
- Better overall outcomes by addressing social determinants of health and clinical needs.
- Care that is aligned with members’ stated goals and preferences.
- Fewer preventable hospitalizations and ED visits through better member education, planning and symptom management.
- A more complete view of members’ health through the integration of care navigation within Evolent’s Oncology solution.
Careology really helped keep my husband connected and enabled him to contribute to my consultation with the oncologist even though he was only able to attend by phone. It’s helped him to understand how I’m feeling day to day to help provide the support I need.
Setting the course for comprehensive care navigation in oncology
Evolent experts describe the pieces of a comprehensive, scalable care navigation program in an article in Evidence-Based Oncology.
