An Update from Navigating Cancer

Easier Access To All Of  Your Information

I’m sure you’ve noticed a big change to the Navigating Cancer Beta Site. There’s a totally new way to navigate the site.

Previously, your personal information on Navigating Cancer was accessible in two places – the Share menu and the Manage menu. The Share section contained your profile page (My Page), your private messages inbox and calendar, while the Manage section held information about your cancer treatments, medications and care team. We heard from our beta testers that navigating multiple areas of the site to review your information was not ideal.

In this newest version, we’ve integrated these two areas of the site into a single tab called “My Organizer”. Now, all of your information on Navigating Cancer is available to you in one place. The menu in your organizer makes it easy for you to view your personal information, your treatments, care team contact details, profile page, documents, recommendations and other information all without leaving “My Organizer”.

Cancer Information From The National Cancer Institute

To the right of the “My Organizer” tab, you’ll notice a second tab called “Cancer Resources”. This area of the site provides quick access to all of the community features you’re familiar with from the previous version including: Groups, Discussions and Shared Experiences. In addition, the Cancer Resources tab introduces a new feature for Navigating Cancer members – cancer information from the National Cancer Institute; organized into categories for easier access to the information you’re looking for.

We’ve also made it easier to discover Groups and other community resources by highlighting the most useful information (as rated by members) available right next to the cancer articles.

Caregivers On Navigating Cancer

A notable new feature of this release is the ability to designate someone as a Caregiver for a patient. A Caregiver on Navigating Cancer is someone who has full permissions to add or edit information on behalf of a patient profile on Navigating Cancer. This makes it possible for a cancer patient to have a profile, keep in touch with their supporters, use the Daily Health Tracker to regularly record their condition and organize their treatment and Care Team contact information on the site. If the patient is unable to keep their information updated, or if they just want some assistance doing so, they can designate someone as a Caregiver to provide that help.

A user who is a Caregiver for someone on Navigating Cancer will have an additional “Organizer” tab for the person they are providing care for. This makes it easy for the Caregiver to switch between their own information (on “My Organizer”) and the patient’s information that they’re caring for.

Other Highlights

Other enhancements in this release include:

  • Dashboard Page – The Dashboard is the first page you see when you click the “My Organizer” tab. This new page displays a summary of activity for the people and groups you’re connected with on Navigating Cancer. It also features a mini version of the Daily Health Tracker to make it easier to capture quick entries when you sign in.
  • Common chemotherapy regimens listed for specific cancers. In the Treatments section (on your My Organizer tab), if you add a chemotherapy treatment, you’ll now have the option of selecting from common chemotherapy regimens for the type of cancer you’ve saved in your site settings (of course you can also create a new regimen if yours is not listed). Selecting one of the regimens in the list will automatically list each of the chemo drugs for that regimen.
  • Schedule & track your treatments and medications. When you add a treatment or medication to your Health Records section (also on your My Organizer tab), you’ll see an option to “Add to my Daily Health Tracker and Calendar”. If you do this, you can easily set up a schedule to create reminders for your treatments and medications on your calendar and Daily Health Tracker.
  • Health Tracker Reports are also new in this release. If you’ve been using the Daily Health Tracker to record your general health or side effects, you can now see a summary report for the previous 1, 2, 3 or 4 week period. The report summarizes the areas you’ve indicated are going well and highlights those areas where you’ve reported issues. The benefit of the report is that it can help you and your doctor pinpoint relationships between your symptoms and side effects, and any medications, treatments or other activities that you may be doing.
  • Prepare For Appointment report. While this is just a first step toward the functionality we’re working on, this report provides a useful tool to help you communicate effectively with your doctor. The Prepare For Appointment report includes a summary of your information from the Health Tracker Reports, and provides an area for you to record specific questions you want to ask your doctor. Print this report and take it with you to your next appointment so you can recall and record important items for discussion.

We are excited about introducing these new capabilities and look forward to hearing from you. We know that this release introduces many changes and that it may take a little time to get used to. We thank you for your patience and willingness to try out this beta version of Navigating Cancer. We strongly encourage you to share your thoughts and suggestions to make it even better and more useful for you and other users over the coming weeks and months. Send feedback to us at feedback@.

Thanks!

The Navigating Cancer Team

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