Learning is interactive with real examples, cases, and small group work
Level 2 Courses
Level 2 courses are designed for navigators who are experienced or who may be a nurse or social worker. These courses may be in person or online. Courses are very interactive. Activities include small group work, role-playing, practice sessions, and group discussion. Real-life scenarios and examples are woven throughout each course. Level 1 is the recommended prerequisite for all Level 2 courses.
See the Course Calendar to see which courses are coming up.
Care Coordination for Patient Navigators
(1.5 days in person or 4 weeks online)
Healthcare delivery can be very fragmented, which often results in poor health outcomes, patient dissatisfaction, and higher healthcare costs. Coordinated care contributes to patient-centered, high-quality care.
This course focuses on the role of the health navigator in team-based care coordination. We will explore care coordination and related concepts, including their application to practice and commonly encountered challenges. You will be guided step-by-step to learn the basic skills and advanced strategies to enhance team-based care and client engagement for better health outcomes, patient safety, and workflow efficiency.
Course Topics
- An introduction to team roles and functions for effective care coordination
- Communication techniques for team responsibility and accountability to a shared plan of care
- Tools to efficiently manage your patients panel
- Overview of strategies you can use with your clients to enhance self-care
- Ways to measure the effectiveness of care coordination
- Case-based discussion and guided practice
Audience: Those working in a team-based setting to increase access to care, including patient navigators, health navigators, care coordinators, community health workers, nurses and social workers.
Prerequisite: Level 1: Health Navigation Fundamentals or permission of course instructor
Course Learning Objectives
After completing this course, you will be able to:
- Define the why, what, who, and how of care coordination
- Describe the different roles & responsibilities of interdisciplinary care team members
- Apply evidence-based care coordination skills to common population-based patient scenarios
- Discuss ways to measure and report the effects of care coordination services
“The course content was carefully selected and the video examples always accurately reflected the learning. The material was also very engaging.”
Advanced Motivational Interviewing (1 day in person)
This course builds on the fundamental motivational interviewing concepts and basic skills learned in the Patient Navigator Fundamentals course/Basic Motivational Interviewing. In this course, you will expand your skills related to the strategic use of questions and reflections to build upon and deepen client change talk. You will also learn to reduce client resistance by practicing complex and focused reflective listening skills.
Course Learning Objectives
After completing this course, you will be able to:
- Explain the spirit and principles of MI
- List the four basic MI communication skills (OARS)
- Demonstrate empathic listening skills
- Demonstrate the directive aspects of MI
- Describe the fundamental client language cues (change talk and resistance) that allow feedback and learning in practice
- Demonstrate the use of strategic, open-ended questions and reflections that elicit and deepen client motivation
- Demonstrate the use of complex reflections to decrease client resistance
Emotional and Social Aspects of Disease Online Course
7 week, instructor-led, online course
Chronic diseases affect our physical bodies, but they also have an emotional, social and psychological impact. This course explains how chronic disease affects patients and their families and the role of navigators in helping patients.
In this course, you will explore how to:
- Help patients and families adjust to chronic disease
- Increase a patient’s sense of empowerment
- Assess patient coping strategies
- Identify mental illness or patients in crisis
Course Learning Objectives
At the end of this course you will be able to:
Bias, Culture and Values in Healthcare
- Describe how personal bias and culture can impact the way people interpret illness and interact with the medical system
- Identify your own biases and how they affect your role as a patient navigator
- Demonstrate effective interviewing skills by listing questions you would ask to better understand a patient’s behavior and belief system
Patient Response and Adjustment to Chronic Disease
- Identify a patient’s phases of chronic disease
- Identify typical behaviors and feelings for each disease phase
- Describe how to respond to patients depending on the phase they are in
- Identify factors that impact an individual’s beliefs about their illness
Empowering the Patient
- Describe why it is important to empower patients instead of “doing” for them
- Generate ways to increase a patient’s sense of empowerment
Coping Strategies and Social Support
- Identify emotion- and problem-focused coping strategies and their appropriate use
- Assess patient coping strategies and suggest coping strategies that match the situation
- Describe social support and the forms it can take
- Describe ways to help patients enhance their social support network
- Assess patient support system and identify support needs
Basics of Mental Illness and Crisis Management
- Understand characteristics of common mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety
- Assess when it is appropriate to refer a patient to mental health services
- Describe the patient navigator’s role in dealing with a patient crisis
- List three ways to help patients during a crisis
Impact of Illness on Caregivers and Family Members
- Understand the effect of chronic disease on families and caregivers
- Recognize warning signs of caregiver burnout
- Support communication between patient and family or caregivers
- List caregiver resources such as support groups and information for patient families and caregivers
A note about online courses:
All online courses and activities take place via the Internet with live learning session via Zoom web conferencing. Online courses are led by an instructor and are NOT self-paced. Activities include readings, tutorials, quizzes, and online discussions with other patient navigators. Online courses require 2-3 hours of time per week. Because you will be participating in online discussions with other students in the course, the success of the course depends on your participation. By registering for an online course, you commit to fully participating in the course and online discussions.
Trainings Available Upon Request
Advanced Health Behavior Change
(3 weeks online or 1 day in person)
In this course, we examine skills that support patients in making positive health behavior change. Learn about the challenges that clients face in making lasting changes and evidence-based strategies that support healthy behaviors.
Course Learning Objectives
At the end of the course, students will be able to:
- Articulate the patient navigator role in cardiovascular disease prevention through supporting behavior change.
- Implement two supportive tools to enhance behavior change.
- Demonstrate two techniques for motivation development and enhancement.
- Exhibit appropriate teach-back and demonstration techniques for behavior change.
- Identify three community programs for cardiovascular disease prevention, chronic condition m self-management, healthy eating and physical activity.
Advanced Health Literacy (1 day in person)
This 1-day training is designed for health navigators who are interested in practicing strategies to modify their written and verbal communication in order to increase patient understanding of health information. The day will be highly interactive and activity-based. Prior participation in the Patient Navigator Fundamentals Course is preferred.
Course Learning Objectives
At the end of the course, students will be able to:
- Develop health education materials that are written at literacy levels appropriate for your patients/clients.
- Identify a variety of health education materials that are appropriate for your patients/clients.
- Modify your verbal communication (e.g. word choice, explanations) to increase patient/client understanding of health-related information.
- Use appropriate strategies to checking for understanding in order make sure that the patients/clients that you work understand important health information.