EU Navigate

Most people with cancer are elderly. This disease affects millions of Europeans every year. Providing high-quality, equitable and cost-effective care across the continuum of supportive, palliative, end-of-life and survivorship care for patients and their often overburdened family carers is highly relevant from an economic, health and preventive point of view. The EU NAVIGATE project is an interdisciplinary, transnational and cross-sectoral project to evaluate the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of a navigation intervention (NavCare-EU) for elderly cancer patients and their family carers in different healthcare systems across Europe. NavCare-EU is a person- and family-centered, non-pharmacological intervention in which navigators collaborate with patients and families to improve quality of life and well-being, promote empowerment and facilitate rapid and equitable access to health and social services, care services and resources as needed, along the continuum of supportive and palliative care. NavCare-EU is based on an existing intervention: Nav-Care, successfully tested in Canada. Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness will be evaluated in an international randomized controlled trial involving 532 cancer patients aged 70 and over and their family caregivers. Mixed analyses and in-depth process and implementation evaluations are also included. EU NAVIGATE will advance the state of the art by providing innovative solutions to the complex supportive and palliative care needs of elderly cancer patients and their families. These solutions will be applicable in a variety of healthcare systems and contexts. Users and stakeholders will be involved throughout the project.