What makes for successful patient navigation implementation in cancer prevention and screening programs using an evaluation and sustainability framework.

Background: Integrating patient navigation into cancer prevention and early detection efforts has been effective in increasing cancer screening rates for the medically underserved. Few publications have focused on how cancer screening interventions in the primary care setting using patient navigation as a primary strategy are implemented, adapted, and sustained. In 2006, the University of Colorado Cancer Center established a statewide colorectal cancer screening program to reduce disparities and improve colorectal cancer (CRC) screening for the medically underserved in partnership with the safety net system.

Colon cancer screening for Colorado's underserved: a community clinic/academic partnership.

Background: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is largely preventable by finding and removing adenomas, but many people have not been screened, especially the uninsured with low income.

Purpose: To establish a statewide infrastructure to ensure that low-income Coloradans receive colonoscopy for CRC screening and diagnostic evaluation.

Design: In 2006, a statewide program to provide free colonoscopy to uninsured Coloradans was developed as a partnership between the University of Colorado Cancer Center and Colorado safety-net clinics.

A standardized reporting system for assessment of diverse public health programs.

State public health agencies face challenges when monitoring the efforts and effects of public health programs that use disparate strategies and address various diseases, locations, and populations. The external evaluators of a complex portfolio of grant funding sought a standardized reporting framework and tool that could be used for all grants in the portfolio, without having to redesign it for each disease or intervention approach. Evaluators iteratively reviewed grant-funded projects to identify common project delivery strategies, then developed and implemented a common reporting framework and spreadsheet-based data capture tool.