Healthcare Navigators: Volunteers from and for the Circle of Care
Volunteer members of the new St. Joseph Hospital Foundation Circle of Care program are available on-call to other Circle of Care members 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Each of these Healthcare “Navigators” is trained to assist you and yours during a visit or stay.
Navigators may answer questions or steer inquiries to appropriate sources within the Hospital system; they may facilitate contacts, schedule visits, or arrange solutions for a host of other issues. Does a family doctor need notice? Should a neighbor walk the dog? Would you like the Navigator to be with you in the waiting room? Would you appreciate company, a cup of coffee, or help with a restless child?
Healthcare Navigators are not PeaceHealth staff, but Circle of Care volunteers familiar with Hospital layout and protocol. Each has signed a confidentiality agreement and has passed a test addressing issues of confidentiality. The Navigators volunteer their time for the same reasons they are supporting the Hospital financially:
“Because it feels best when you’re giving back”
Lynette Jensen
“I wanted to be part of this important Circle of Care program.”
Mo West
“I’ve hoped for this to happen from Day One. I’m so appreciative it’s happening now…I think this service will make lives easier for patients and staff, that it will make friends for the Hospital, and let people know the importance of belonging to the Circle of Care.”
Joanne Robinson
For information about Healthcare Navigator services, the Circle of Care, or special Circle of Care briefings by physicians, please contact the Hospital Foundation at (360) 788 6866.
Of Mission and Trials
Cancer trials at St. Joseph Hospital Cancer Center
“We will have fulfilled our promise when every PeaceHealth patient receives safe, evidence-based, compassionate care: every time, every touch.” PeaceHealth Vision Statement 2012
Evidence-based.
The phrase forms an essential part of St. Joseph Hospital’s Mission and Promise, following directly and appropriately from “safe.” Clinical trials provide evidence essential to providing the best possible treatments. Dr. Michael A Taylor, from St. Joseph’s Hospital Cancer Care Center Radiation Oncologist, emphasizes this point in his video. “This is the main way we’re going to going advance cancer care for our patients.”
With some trials come issues for a patient to consider, carefully, in conversations with a doctor; they also offer access to the newest medications and treatments, presenting possibilities for better outcomes than achieved by more conventional approaches. In every case, trial participants help refine the science that improves and extends our lives.
The same can be said for the facilities that volunteer to participate in studies, Qualifying for these is an enormously time consuming and labor-intensive process. In the dynamic field of radiation oncology, St. Joseph’s is the only Washington hospital west of the mountains and north of Seattle to pass the rigorous Quality Assurance Review administered by the National Cancer Institute.
Dr. Taylor identifies the implications of this registration: “We’re able to enter patients in trials because we’ve received a stamp of approval from a very demanding body. The fact that we’re willing to accept the challenges (of achieving accreditation) demonstrates our commitment,” also the sophistication of St. Joseph’s technology and skilled staff. “And none of the staff hours required for the process are paid for by any agency but the Hospital, and by donations to the Hospital Foundation.”
The Circle of Care of St. Joseph Hospital
The Circle of Care is an association of caring people who recognize the central role that St. Joseph Hospital plays in the well-being of our community in Northwest Washington. All Circle of Care members have contributed or pledged a minimum of $5,000 to the Hospital.
Benefits of Circle of Care membership include:
• CEO Briefings – these events include current plans and news of the Hospital from Nancy Steiger, Chief Executive Officer, and other speakers.
• Healthcare navigation benefits - we are offering these benefits to people to personally assist them when they seek care at the Hospital. At the very core of these benefits is access to our Hospital liaison 24/7 to assist you with your needs pertaining to your Hospital visit. These benefits are personal, not preferential. You will receive the same excellent care everyone else who visits St. Joseph Hospital receives. Our staff will be available to assist and guide you.
• Displays of Circle of Care donors at the Hospital
• Annual donor recognition Gala - our annual black-tie optional event is both entertaining and inspirational. Awards are given to philanthropy leaders in our community and prominent speakers round out the evening.
Are you interested in learning more? Please call the Office of Development at (360) 788-6866.
Click to download a pledge form -> Circle of Care pledgeform
Measuring Mission at the St. Joseph Foundation
“Much of the work being done at St. Joseph Hospital falls into the category of ‘best kept secrets.’ Our job at the Foundation is to share with the community the remarkable work being done by our local physicians and the caregivers at the Hospital. The more people who know about St. Joseph Hospital and our commitment to excellent medicine and compassionate care, the more they will feel compelled to support it, as many of you already do.”
-Nancy Steiger, Regional CEO & CMO, “CEO Briefing on Radiation Oncology” at Mt. Baker Theatre in Bellingham, WA on November 12, 2009
If some stories beg to be told, so do certain statistics. Especially when these numbers reveal how treating every patient with safe, evidence based compassionate care—every time, every touch—translate to remarkable rates of cancer survival. Extending lives provides a base measure, suggesting also symptoms relieved, illnesses managed.
Every Hospital program hopes to provide the finest care. At St. Joseph’s Cancer Center, survival rates for the most common cancer sites exceed those reported in the National Oncology Database, for cancers of the breast and prostate, by about two percent; and ten percent for lung and colorectal cancers.
The Cancer Center’s Dr. William Hall put the significance of these figures into perspective, in comments distilled from his November 12 presentation to members of the Circle of Care:
Michael Taylor, MD on the Clinical Trials Available for Cancer Patients
Michael Taylor, MD, Radiation Oncologist, on advancing cancer care and treating more patients.
CEO Briefing on Interventional Radiology & Radiation Oncology in Bellingham
Thursday, November 12, Mt. Baker Theatre – Circle of Care members and their guests were given a look behind the scenes at some of the hospital programs supported by the Hospital Foundation. Nancy Steiger, Regional CEO and CMO, pointed out that we have many reasons to be proud of our award-winning Hospital, and just as many reasons to donate to the Hospital Foundation. The contributions made by guest speakers Dag Jensen, MD (Northwest Radiologists) and Dr. William Hall (Cancer Center) illustrated this statement.
Dr. Ian Thompson, On What Sets Our Cancer Center Apart
Ian L. Thompson, MD, Radiation Oncologist, describes the uniqueness of the St. Joseph Cancer Center.