Improving care outcomes through navigation in stroke

Navigation services provided by a stroke navigator in the first 6 months post stroke across the care continuum (in-patient and community based). Rather than applying a ‘one size fits all’ approach, the stroke navigator (trained in care navigation) will work alongside the extended family to assess, identify and address individual/ family needs with the aim of improving the wellbeing of both family and patient. An extensive scoping literature review (McKechnie et al., submitted for publication) has not identified any data on what the expected workload of the stroke navigator might be. Following discussions with our stakeholders and other anecdotal evidence we have estimated an average of three hours per family per week over the six month intervention phase of the study. With individual family needs and the nature of the post-stroke trajectory, it is anticipated that there will be times when the stroke navigator may work more than three hours a week with a family; at other times less. We anticipate there will be a degree of flexibility in the type of interaction (e.g. face-to-face, phone, email) and the time required to meet the needs of specific families.