Institutional barriers that hinder patients from obtaining a better diagnosis and treatment.
The Patient Navigation aims to help the patient to access the health system, understand and end their treatment, accompanying their first appointments of radiation and chemotherapy, and determine what barriers can hinder the patient from having the accesses described above. Many times we believe that the barriers are transportation, financial, or family support. However, there are barriers that are within the health system, within clinics and hospitals. These barriers of the internal system of the organization are often the first obstacles that we should analyze and see how institutionally we can provide a better service to patients to facilitate access to health. Types of institutional barriers can be: that there are programs within the organization and that they are not made known, that there is no good communication between the staff to guide the patient, that they cannot grant flexibility in medical appointments if the patient requires it , the limitation of medical equipment and treatment, lack of staff collaboration towards the needs and priorities of the patient. It is important to analyze all external and internal barriers and see what solutions can be provided to our patients to obtain more positive results during and after their treatment.