Tata Memorial Centre elevates its patient navigation training course
Named after the boatman who assisted Lord Ram, Sita, and Lakshman in crossing the river Ganga, the Kevat programme has trained 130 students who have aided over six lakh patients. The programme comprises a clinical oncology module covering major cancers such as head and neck, breast, gastrointestinal, and gynaecological cancers
Mumbai: With the estimated cancer burden in India likely to increase from approximately one million cases in 2012 to about 1.7 million in 2035, the Tata Memorial Centre (TMC), centre for the prevention, treatment and research on Cancer, is upgrading its patient navigation course from diploma level to masters in order to create a robust workforce that will serve as a connection between doctors, NGOs and sponsors during a patient’s cancer treatment.
Across the globe, this is the first postgraduate master’s programme in patient navigation in oncology.
TMC had started a programme on oncology care called Kevat in 2018 in association with Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) and Tata Trust to help create a navigation system for patients. Calling patient navigation a rapidly growing and evolving healthcare profession, Dr SD Banavali, director, of academics in TMC said, there are many research papers and publications that recognise the need and merit of the role of patient navigators co-existing in a system functioning with social workers and psychologists.
“While a social worker may be expected to learn about the medical aspects while on the job, TMC through this course plans on integrating this learning in the course. Hands-on learning will form an essential part of skill development. Seeing the success of the diploma course on patient navigation, we are starting the masters which will be in-depth and will have a research component,” he said.
Named after the boatman who assisted Lord Ram, Sita, and Lakshman in crossing the river Ganga, the Kevat programme has trained 130 students who have aided over six lakh patients. The programme comprises a clinical oncology module covering major cancers such as head and neck, breast, gastrointestinal, and gynaecological cancers. Additionally, a psychosocial module addresses mental health, networking, advocacy, and communication skills.
A patient navigator typically assists 20 to 25 patients in a day, of which four to five require hand-holding. The Kevats or patient navigators are placed in strategic locations like the outpatient departments, palliative medicine departments and wards.
“During cancer treatment, patients and their families want two things- information and emotional support. In the last five years, we have found that Kevats were helpful in providing information to the patients and their families. Doctors have less time because of the patient load and can give 5-10 minutes. It is the Kevats who the patient and the relatives then rely on to provide proper information,” said Dr Banavali.
Nishu Singh Goel, who heads the programme said apart from starting the masters in patient navigation this year, they are also decentralising the existing diploma courses by offering it in other peripheral hospitals. “The diploma course was so far held at Tata Memorial Hospital in Parel wherein all the learning and teaching took place in TMH and internship in other hospitals. We will now start the course in our Varanasi, Visakhapatnam and ACTREC-Kharghar centres. The idea to decentralise the programme was so that patients could get support closer to their domicile in their native language and culture. This will help minimise the gaps which exist in patient care. We intend to then expand the courses in other centres later,” said Goel.