Impact of imaging nurse navigation on breast interventions: Direct and closed-loop patient communication and...

A breast imaging nurse navigator (NN) was established with the goals to enhance the patient experience after biopsy, improve care timeliness, accuracy, and coordination, facilitate direct communication to patients, and increase care retention within our system. Our aim was to determine the impact of NN on patient care time metrics, communication, documentation, compliance, and care retention at our institution after breast biopsy.

Retrospective review of a six-month period before (5/1/17-10/31/17) and after (5/1/19-10/31/19) establishment of a nurse navigator in our breast imaging department was performed, including 498 patients in the pre-navigation (pre-NN) group and 526 patients in the post-navigation (post-NN) group. Data was gathered from the electronic medical record and collected using REDCap.

Biopsy pathology results were communicated directly to the patient more often post-NN (71%, 374/526) compared to pre-NN (4%, 21/498) (p < 0.0001), without change in overall time of result communication (p = 0.08). Due to factors outside of imaging, most care time metrics were longer post-NN, including days from biopsy to pathology report (p < 0.001), result communication to initiation of care (p < 0.001), and biopsy to surgery (p < 0.001). There was no difference and high compliance (p = 1) and care retention (p = 0.015) in both groups. There was improved documentation of pathology results, recommendations, and communication post-NN (0/526 vs 10/498, p = 0.001).

Imaging nurse navigation added greatest value by communicating breast biopsy results and recommendations directly to patients and ensuring documentation. Compliance and retention were high in both groups. Factors outside of Radiology influenced time metrics, requiring further investigation of multidisciplinary collaboration.