Helping Patients Navigate Cancer Care Through New Treatment Models

Although it is common for patients navigating cancer care often feel overwhelmed and unsupported, this should not be the acceptable norm, according to Kasey Bowden, a nurse practitioner at UCHealth, University of Colorado Hospital, in Denver, who added that to address these gaps in care, the CARE Clinic aims to offer a consistent, accessible point of contact for patients.

Moreover, the physicians at the CARE Clinic hope to address symptoms, treatment questions, and urgent concerns for this underserved patient group. Moreover, Bowden emphasized that there is a need for systemic improvements in cancer care navigation and calls for supportive, structured resources at all cancer centers.

In an interview with CURE, Bowden discussed how confusing and overwhelming the cancer care system can be for patients and families, highlighting the importance of having a reliable support structure, like the CARE Clinic.

Bowden serves as the medical director of the UCHealth Clinical Assessment and Rapid Evaluation (CARE) Clinic on the Anschutz Medical Campus. Additionally, Bowden is the associate division head of the CU Division of Hospital Medicine, director of Value-Based Care for the CU Division of Oncology, and associate professor of Medicine–Hospital Medicine and assistant professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.

Transcript

For patients who may feel lost in the system or unsure of where to turn, what message do you want them to hear about the support available, especially through models like the CARE Clinic?

For patients and families who feel lost within the system, my first message would be one of empathy and understanding. Even in my experience working in the system, it's enormous and complicated. I do believe that, as a system, we have a responsibility to do better. My hope is that this is the start of what we are doing as a CARE Clinic. Furthermore, it is my hope and dream that an intensive, supportive care structure becomes a part of every cancer center across the country. More and more patients are being diagnosed with cancer and living with cancer, so we need to support them through this process. We need to do better as a system. So, first, I would say I understand, empathize, and believe that as a system, we should be encouraged to advocate for doing better, to help those patients not feel lost within the system.

As patients go through anti-cancer treatment, nurse navigators can often be invaluable resources. However, it's individual to each cancer center who the point person is to guide someone through their anti-cancer process. In our model, our goal is to have a space open seven days a week that patients can call with any and all of these kind of offshoot questions, concerns, symptoms, and side effects. Even if we're not the place to address it, we can hopefully get them to the right place. If your institution doesn't have a CARE Clinic available, I would ask your team: "Who is my seven-day-a-week person to call and help me navigate through the system?"

So, there are a few things to consider: Who is my person when something unexpected comes up that I can call at any time, seven days a week? Who should that person be? Then there's the step of, okay, when I just need help walking through the system of aligning my appointments, where to go, and when to go, who's my person for that? It's about knowing who helps you stay on track when things are steady, ensuring you know where, when, and what time to go. But then there's the crucial question: when something urgent, unexpected, or concerning pops up, who do I call and where do I go?

If they don't have someone within their cancer center, I would frankly encourage your team to provide you with those resources. I believe we have a responsibility to do better than just sending people to the emergency room for anything acute and unexpected. This is a disease that presents acute and unexpected challenges all the time. Therefore, as a system, we need to build structures to address the acute and unexpected, rather than expecting our already over-fraught, over-extended, and over-expensive emergency department system to handle these things. This is especially true with all the new and emerging treatments that emergency physicians are not trained in, as they shouldn't be. That's no longer a viable model.

Reference

1. “CARE (Clinical Assessment and Rapid Evaluation) Clinic,” by University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. Accessed July 21, 2025.

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