Standardizing Nurse Navigation Assessments

The ONNPA© is a newly developed tool tailored for the needs of oncology nurse navigators (ONNs). The ONNPA© facilitates holistic and comprehensive identification of patient needs and barriers to cancer care. It offers a standardized approach for novice and expert navigators to assessing newly diagnosed cancer patients. You can pre-view the ONNPA© tool here.

Aligning with Accreditation Standards

Standardizing Nurse Navigation Assessments

The ONNPA© can be used to navigate patients with all cancer diagnoses and aligns with the quality standards of the Commission on Cancer (CoC, 2023), the National Accreditation Program for Breast Centers (NAPBC 2018 and 2024 Standards), and the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s QOPI® Certification Program standards.

Clinical and Non-clinical Significance

Standardizing Nurse Navigation Assessments

Clinical and Non-clinical Significance

The ONNPA© aids nursing care plan development and evaluation in addition to generating metadata for organizational and accreditation purposes. The tool can be used to measure population health disparities, the value contribution of nurse navigators, the timespan between diagnosis and treatment, and the mitigation of population-level morbidity and mortality disparities.

Experienced Research Team

Patient-Focused Approaches

Clinical and Non-clinical Significance

Our research team has decades of experience in conducting nursing research. With backgrounds in oncology nurse navigation, nurse management, and population health equity, we are able to approach research from a variety of perspectives and develop innovative solutions to complex problems.

Patient-Focused Approaches

Foremost, we are committed to putting patients first. Our research is designed to improve patient outcomes and facilitate timely access to cancer care. Giving oncology nurse navigators in rural, and otherwise resource-constraint, settings free tools to identify and remove barriers to timely and high-quality cancer treatment levels the playing filed for all patients regardless of age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion/spirituality, and culture.

Collaborative Partnerships

Patient-Focused Approaches

We believe that the best results come from aligning the strengths of clinicians, researchers, and local communities.. That's why we collaborate with cancer centers across the nation to work on problems that local communities themselves have identified. The synergy is palpable when we achieve our shared goals propelled by a force greater than the sum of our parts.

Single IRB for Multi-site or Cooperative Research

This study is subject to the NIH Single IRB policy and the revised Common Rule (rCR) as a NIH-funded study being conducted at more than one U.S. site involving non-exempt human subjects research. IRB approval was granted through the Fort Lewis College (FLC) Institutional Review Board #IRB-2024-04. No additional IRB reviews from partner institutions are needed. For more information, please read the NIH Single IRB Policy linked below.

NIH Single IRB Policy

Anyone who would like to use the ONNPA© outside of the study protocol will need to fill out a PERMISSION REQUEST FORM after reviewing the GUIDELINES FOR USE. We would like to advise that it is not recommended to incorporate the ONNPA© into clinical practice before the reliability or validity of the tool has been scientifically established. If you like to try the ONNPA© with patients, we encourage you to become a study participant. Otherwise, please proceed to filling out the PERMISSION REQUEST FORM after reading the GUIDELINES FOR USE.

Read Guidelines for Use