Nurse navigator. A concept analysis according to the Walker and Avant model.
Maysa Mayran Chaves Moreira, Dayara Ainne de Sousa Araújo, Samara Dantas de Medeiros Diniz and 3 others
PMID 41980247WHAT IT FOUND
Nurse navigator means a specialist nurse who continuously manages care, connects patient needs to services, strengthens nurse-patient bond, overcomes treatment barriers, and promotes health literacy.
It defines the role; it does not prove navigation improves outcomes.
Key findings
01The review mapped the nurse navigator concept from 41 included articles.
02The nurse navigator is defined as a professional with specialized knowledge who manages care continuously and integrates the user's needs into the health network.
03The mapped attributes included care management, assertive communication, continuous care, specialized knowledge, health literacy, overcoming care barriers, relationship building, and quality of care.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
This is a concept analysis and scoping review, not a clinical trial, so it cannot establish that nurse navigation improves outcomes. The stated exclusion criteria included reviews, yet the included study list contains review articles, so the selection process is unclear. Some included studies did not present the nurse navigator concept, and access was limited for some studies to abstracts only. Nearly half of the included articles were from North America (48.7%) and 82.9% were in English, so the concept may not fit other health systems. There were few standardized definitions, and the review did not synthesize patient outcome data.
Declared interests
Funding was provided by CAPES. The supplied text does not state authors' conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the listed consequences, such as reduced hospital admission or reduced mortality, as proof that nurse navigation works. This paper defined and mapped the concept from 41 articles; it did not measure patient outcomes.