Category(s):
Health
Status: Closed
Principal: Beverly Kemp
Project Number: P0059
Year Approved: 2022
The Heart and Stroke Foundation of New Brunswick (HSFNB) is managing a new project which aims to assist individuals who have had a stroke at home, with community support. It will aim to answer the question: Does stroke navigation improve health outcomes for individuals post-stroke?
Stroke Navigation is a service which aims to assist individuals to reintegrate back into their community post-stroke. It is concerned with improving an individual’s ability to participate in activities of daily living, recreation, socialization and general interactions. Navigation is facilitated by a Stroke Navigator whose roles/responsibilities have been developed through the analysis of Canadian Stroke Best Practices and other current research. Under this framework, a stroke navigator’s role is broken down into four pillars: Support, Educate, Connect and Motivate.
Stroke patients 65+ from Horizon and Vitalité are discharged from the hospital and referred to their community stroke-navigator (or self-referred/community referral). The navigator is an HSFNB employee who works closely with each person to evaluate and meet their needs.
The evaluation of this program will use both qualitative and quantitative methods. Qualitatively, this program is in a unique position to allow for interview-based research. All patients will have specific intake and discharge sessions which will lend itself well to data collection on patient experiences in the community. There will also be progress tracking which takes place throughout the patient’s time with the program and can be used for evaluation purposes.
Quantitatively, a case-control analysis between stroke patients who seek navigation services and stroke patients who do not will take place. For the purposes of this project, we plan to compare self-reported data from Stroke Navigation clients to a historical control group created through the NB-IRDT.
We expected that this program will follow the success of other similar projects in Canada and the US. We expect to see a decrease in re-hospitalization, an increase in the number of people following health care plans and an increase in the number of stroke survivors/care partners who feel they can confidently manage their condition.
