Reproductive Cancer Patient Navigator

Sea Mar Community Health Centers, a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) founded in 1978, is a community-based organization committed to providing quality, comprehensive health, human, housing, educational and cultural services to diverse communities, specializing in service to Latinos in Washington State. Sea Mar proudly serves all persons without regard to race, ethnicity, immigration status, gender, or sexual orientation, and regardless of ability to pay for services. Sea Mar's network of services includes more than 90 medical, dental, and behavioral health clinics and a wide variety of nutritional, social, and educational services. We are recruiting for the following position:

Sea Mar is a mandatory COVID-19 and flu vaccine organization

Position Summary

The Sea Mar Reproductive Cancer Patient Navigator (PN) (temporary position) supported by the non-profit RAD-AID International. The PN will act as a support to clinicians to guide patients through each step in the process of any abnormal breast or cervical cancer screening result, assisting patients in accessing recommended follow-up care, including additional imaging, tests and appointments at tertiary care centers. Sea Mar’s goal is for all patients to receive appropriate follow-up and for any confirmed cancer to be diagnosed within 60 days of abnormal screening or presentation of symptoms. The Reproductive Cancer Patient Navigator will use supportive communication to motivate and assist patients to overcome obstacles in completing follow-up testing and accessing specialty care. The Reproductive Cancer Patient Navigator will maintain on-going communication with patients, clinical staff (Primary Care) and specialty care providers (Gynecology, Oncology), and community partners to assure the patients’ timely and appropriate care.

Duties and Responsibilities

As a mission-driven organization, the core values of, and the services offered at Sea Mar are based on the belief that everyone deserves to be respectfully treated in a way that preserves dignity and enhances self-worth. Sea Mar is an advocate for its patients and aims to achieve industry-leading, client-centered, culturally aware services.

Sea Mar employees serve as an extension of this mission and demonstrate their commitment to an excellent client experience by:

• Understanding and empathizing with patient needs

• Surpassing patient expectations

• Demonstrating a high level of integrity

• Exhibiting compassion and commitment

• Advocating for social justice

• Taking pride in individual work as well as that of the team

• Continually learning to stay current with industry standards, best practices and technology

As a Sea Mar employee, the individual in this position commits to adherence to these values to their utmost ability and endeavors to strengthen and embody this mission daily.

• Under the direction of the QI department and the clinical lead, facilitate and schedule patient appointments/referrals with appropriate provider(s) for reproductive cancer screening, diagnosis, and treatment.
• Contact patients with referrals related to breast and cervical abnormalities.
• Request medical records from outside care providers and upload to ensure accurate and complete medical record.
• Consider and strategically address the “social determinants of health” which may be delay or otherwise interfere with timely and appropriate follow-up services. This includes contacting and reminding patients to schedule appointments, and communicate, and arrive at scheduled appointments on time and prepared.
• Maintain timely communication with primary care, Oncologist, Gynecologist and other specialty care providers to facilitate collaboration between the patient’s primary care medical home and their specialists.
• Collaborate with Sea Mar medical clinical staff, specialty clinics, research teams, and other stakeholders in the planning and implementation of educational, training and quality improvement efforts for reproductive cancers.  Support quality improvement efforts regarding cancer screening, referrals, tracking and follow up.
• Participate in Well Women Clinic Day’s and community outreach.
• Assist in developing future workflow within Sea Mar clinics and assist patients with outside referrals to specialty care.
• Attend trainings and learning opportunities that expand content knowledge and best practices.
• Track appropriate patient-level quality outcomes for monitoring and evaluation efforts.
• Other duties as assigned.

Qualifications

State the minimum qualifications required to successfully perform the job. These qualifications are necessary for someone to be considered for the position.

Qualifications include:

• Working knowledge of preventative cancer screening and its importance.
• Knowledge of patient care processes, clinical procedures, and medical terminology, particularly regarding breast and cervical health.
• Ability to think strategically to work though barriers with patients around medical access and procedures.
• Strong communication skills ability to connect with patients by phone.
• Strong organizational and time management skills.
• Ability to work with electronic health records and create messages, look at labs, review patient encounters and, as appropriate, update the medical record with historical data.
• Must be able to work both independently with minimal supervision and as a collaborative team in a dynamic work environment.
• Must be able to use good judgment, meet deadlines and prioritize workloads. Must be able to maintain professionalism and appropriate boundaries in all interactions.
• Must be detail and process-oriented with experience using electronic recording data system (i.e. Epic) and various Microsoft Office applications such as Word, Excel, Access, Power Point, Outlook and Internet applications.
• Must be able to work evenings and weekends as needed.

Education, Certificates, Licenses, Registrations, and Medical Screening

• High school diploma or equivalent required.

• Bilingual in English/Spanish required.

• Minimum of two years of experience in nursing, medical assistant or related clinical care delivery, or community health outreach and education.

• Pre-hire and annual employee health screening required.

• Initial TB test at hire and annual retest.

• This person must receive a satisfactory background check from the Washington State Patrol and maintain a valid Washington Driver’s license and automobile liability insurance coverage.

• Annual influenza vaccine required. Only exception is for employees with a medical or religious exemption approved by Administration. Employees with an approved medical or religious exemption must wear a mask at all times during the flu season.

Work Environment

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform essential functions.

• While performing the duties of this job, this employee is regularly required to communicate by mail or by telephone with patients.
• While performing the duties of this job, employee is regularly required to sit and work at a computer for long periods, and work in a shared space with ambient noise and other distractions.

What We Offer:

Sea Mar offers talented and motivated people the opportunity to work in a dynamic and growing community health organization. Working at Sea Mar Community Health Centers is more than just a job, it’s a fulfilling career with opportunity for advancement. The fringe benefits surpass most companies. For example, Full-time employees working 30 hours or more, receive an excellent benefit package of:

• Medical
• Dental
• Vision
• Prescription coverage
• Life Insurance
• Long Term Disability
• EAP (Employee Assistance Program)
• Paid-time-off starting at 24 days per year + 10 paid Holidays.
• We also offer 401(k)/Retirement options and an exciting opportunity to work in a culturally diverse environment. 

Sea Mar is an equal opportunity employer.

Please visit our website to learn more about us at www.seamar.org. You may also apply thru our Career page at this link.