Facebook Live Series “Navigate Now: How Can We Help?”
Academy of Oncology Nurse & Patient Navigators (AONN+)
Phil Pawelko, Senior Vice President, Client Services, The Lynx Group
ppawelko@the-lynx-group.com
The Academy of Oncology Nurse & Patient Navigators (AONN+) has had an outstanding amount of success in using Facebook to build an online community of professional oncology nurse and patient navigators and the services that surround this profession. When COVID hit, the company wanted to explore new ways to use the social platform to further help its community members during this time.
In May 2020, the group launched its first Facebook Live series, called “Navigate Now: How Can We Help?” The hosted series features a presentation on a topic of interest in the field of oncology navigation and then encourages response and interaction among participants. Recent sessions have featured discussions with experts in oncology navigation who tackle issues that navigators are facing since the COVID-19 outbreak, including telehealth, compassion fatigue, and access to patient support services.
The AONN+ Facebook Live series has been instrumental in fostering conversations among oncology navigators, administrators, social workers, and AONN+ leadership, especially as the pandemic has eliminated or curtailed previous communication methods such as in-person meetings and live conferences. The selected topics have also focused on professional issues highly relevant to the immediate circumstances, providing an outlet for discussions that might otherwise not have had a forum, such as “Equipping Patients, Family Members, and Caregivers at the Holiday Season,” “End-of-Life Discussions,” and “Distress Screening and the Role of the Navigator.”
The six weekly Facebook Live events reached more than 9,000 people with more than 2,000 engagements. To date, the series has had roughly 23,000 views—for a specialized community of approximately 9,000 members. Due to its success, AONN+ will continue airing the program on a monthly basis for the foreseeable future.
