Schedule:

Monday - Friday 8 -4:30pm (flexibility on start time)

No weekends, evenings or holidays

We are excited to introduce a new Nurse Navigator role focused on Radiation Therapy within our Cancer Center. This position is designed to strengthen care coordination, improve patient experience, and support accreditation standards across our oncology services.

Key Responsibilities

• Patient Navigation & Support
• Serve as the primary point of contact for patients undergoing radiation therapy, guiding them through every step of their treatment journey.
• Collaborate with existing Nurse Navigators to ensure consistent processes, charting, and documentation in alignment with credentialing requirements.
• Conduct patient huddles to bridge care transitions between inpatient, chemotherapy, and radiation services, ensuring smooth hand-offs or continued navigation as appropriate.
• Review Cancer Center Distress Screening Tool results for all new patients. Proactively meet with patients to discuss emotional, physical, and social needs and connect them to appropriate resources (transportation, financial support, counseling, community programs).
• Care Coordination & Access
• Assist patients in scheduling, organizing, and understanding multiple physician appointments, treatments, and procedures.
• When needed, accompany patients to appointments to help them understand treatment plans and schedules.
• Support patients in receiving care closer to home by promoting Jacksonville Memorial Hospital (JMH) for radiation therapy, while maintaining alignment with Springfield Memorial Hospital (SMH) physicians.
• Spend the majority of time at SMH with a consistent presence at JMH several days a month to strengthen visibility and patient connection.
• Communication & Collaboration
• Act as a liaison between patients, oncologists, and the care team, including Springfield Clinic colleagues in Radiation Therapy.
• Foster collaborative, respectful relationships with both Memorial Health and Springfield Clinic staff.
• Provide follow-up calls after appointments to assess ongoing needs, arrange resources, and ensure continuity of care.
• Program & Accreditation Support
• Contribute to Cancer Center accreditation efforts by tracking and documenting patient navigation processes, and ensuring compliance with program standards.
• Assist with departmental initiatives that enhance quality, consistency, and patient volumes across SMH and JMH.

Work Setting: 60% direct patient interactions within the department, 40% via phone follow-up and care coordination.

Locations: Primarily based at SMH with regular travel to JMH for patient presence and program visibility.

Flexibility: Responsibilities may evolve as departmental needs grow, offering opportunities to shape and expand the role over time.

Qualifications

Education:

• BSN degree preferred.

Licensure/Certification/Registry:

• RN license in state of Illinois required.
• Oncology Certified Nurse (OCN) credential or alternate certification in patient navigation, or able to obtain within 2 years of appointment.

Experience:

• Five or more years’ clinical experience required with three or more years in oncology nursing.
• Demonstrated clinical experience appropriate to the oncology patient population; must be able to understand and coordinate the multidisciplinary nature of cancer care across settings and disease trajectory.
• Experience with program development or management including data collection and quality improvement activities.

Other Knowledge/Skills/Abilities:

• Requires excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Proven ability for collaboration and teamwork with members of the professional clinical care team.
• Ability to “think outside the box” to arrive at unique solutions to patient care problems and remove barriers to care.
• Proven ability to function in autonomous/independent role; highly motivated and self-directed.