Anne McNerney is a familiar face to many of the patients at the University of Maryland's Greenebaum Cancer Center. You can find her in the infusion ward most days, chatting with people as they get chemotherapy or wait for a physician consultation.

Her visits are more than just social, though. They're part of her job as a patient navigator with the American Cancer Society. Navigators like McNerney spend their days helping cancer patients find information and resources that can help them get through their cancer experience.

"I find out what their concerns are, what their barriers to treatment might be," she explains, "and hopefully connect them with services offered through the American Cancer Society and the hospital."

For someone overwhelmed by a cancer diagnosis, "every little barrier to care becomes monumental," she says. "So that's why it's good to have someone on site to help."

McNerney speaks from personal experience. Diagnosed with breast cancer in 1992, she didn't have the benefit of a patient navigator to guide her through treatment and recovery.

"As a patient, you never think to ask for help," she says. "You think you have to do it on your own."

Thanks to the ACS Patient Navigator Program, fewer cancer patients are having to go through this difficult period alone. McNerney and other navigators are there to lend a helping hand wherever the patient needs it most – whether it’s arranging transportation to and from treatment, providing referrals to local services like physical therapy or nutrition counseling, or finding information on financial assistance programs.

The program, which launched in 2005, currently operates in 60 sites across the US. Navigators are full-time ACS employees who go through rigorous training in collaboration with the National Cancer Institute Patient Navigation Research Program. The navigators are concentrated in hospitals and clinics that treat a large number of medically underserved patients -- those without insurance, for instance, or on Medicaid.

The program will be expanding, thanks to a $10-million gift from drug maker AstraZeneca. Over the next 5 years, that money will allow 50 new Patient Navigator Program sites to open. The first of these -- at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance in Seattle, Wash.; the Helen F. Graham Cancer Center at Christiana Care in Wilmington, Del.; and the John H. Stroger, Jr., Hospital of Cook County in Chicago, Ill. -- are slated to open in March and April of 2007. In addition, AstraZeneca employees will distribute information about the Patient Navigator Program to the health-care workers they deal with.

For more information about the American Cancer Society Patient Navigator Program, call 1-800-ACS-2345.

Article date: Feb. 21, 2007