"Patient Navigator"

Position Summary

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is seeking a Patient Navigator within the Rutgers Health Office of Clinical and Health Affairs – Office of Population Health.

The Patient Navigator supports this mission by providing outreach, education, and resource navigation related to cancer screening and chronic disease prevention, screening, and management for patient populations served by the Rutgers Health Service Corps and our health system partners such as Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital (RWJUH), RWJ medical school outpatient practices, Eric B. Chandler community health center, University Hospital Newark, NJ, medical school outpatient practices, among other healthcare providers. The Office of Population Health and the Rutgers Health Service Corps have teams focused on a range of population health topics—including cancer screening, chronic disease screening and management (hypertension, diabetes, asthma), and substance abuse prevention, among others.

The Patient Navigator will serve as a member of the Rutgers Health Service Corps team, helping to screen, educate, and navigate patients who need follow-up care across these population health topic areas. In addition, because the Rutgers Health Service Corps provides students with hands-on public health service experiences, the Patient Navigator will also play a key role in training and supervising our student service corps volunteers. These are students in college, graduate school, and health professions schools (e.g., medicine, pharmacy, nursing, public health, etc.).

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Work as part of the Rutgers Health Service Corps team, contributing to population health initiatives focused on cancer screening, chronic disease screening and management (hypertension, diabetes, asthma), vaccination, among other clinical and public health topics.
• Engage with students involved in Rutgers Health Service Corps projects by providing guidance, mentorship, training, and subject matter expertise to support their work with patients and community members.
• Attend and support community-based patient outreach, recruitment, screening and educational events to assist in connecting eligible patients to appropriate resources and care.
• Identify patient barriers to care such as transportation, insurance, and language barriers, and connect patients as needed to additional resources to support engagement in care.
• Facilitate and schedule patient appointments/referrals with appropriate provider(s) for cancer screening and chronic disease follow-up appointments.
• Make confirmation calls/emails to patients regarding future appointment dates.
• Respond to patient inquiries and assist patients with the completion of paperwork.
• Educate patients on care processes and provide counsel to reduce anxiety and fear.
• Support internal and community partner quality improvement efforts regarding cancer and chronic disease screening and referrals.
• Use the Electronic Health Record (EHR) to document navigation services, monitor appointment attendance, and track completion of services and quality care gaps.
• Attend relevant stakeholder and advisory meetings to support overall program implementation and evaluation.
• Attend training sessions and other learning opportunities that expand content knowledge and best practices.
• Adhere to clinical policies and procedures, which include Patient Rights, and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Privacy standards.

Minimum Education and Experience

• Bachelor's Degree in Public Health, Nursing, Social Work, or another field related to health services/case management plus two (2) or more years of relevant work experience with public health, social work, or health care operations in a problem-solving, patient/client-facing role (preferably, as a patient navigator or case manager).
• Equivalent education, experience, and/or training may be substituted for the degree requirement.

Physical Demands and Work Environment

PHYSICAL DEMANDS

• Standing, sitting, walking, talking and hearing. No special vision requirements.
• Lifting up to 40 lbs. (to move project supplies, set-up and break-down event equipment, etc.).
• Must be able to travel in-state to regional partner program locations in the New Brunswick and Newark area, as well as other places in NJ.
• Must have access to a reliable car, or other means of transportation for travel around the state to meetings and events with partners (mileage and tolls are reimbursed at standard University / Federal rates).

WORK ENVIRONMENT

• Office environment with some work occurring in hospital or clinical settings such as emergency departments, clinics, and at community events. Moderate noise levels.
• The primary office location is in downtown New Brunswick at the Rutgers Institute for Health, and the incumbent is expected to report to this location when not working in a clinical setting or attending a community event.
• The secondary location is the University Hospital Newark campus.
• Frequent walking/travel between community events and community partner sites may be required. Event locations vary and may include indoor/outdoor events throughout New Jersey as well as virtual/video conferencing settings.