Where Does it Hurt? Outcome Visibility: You Can’t Improve What You Can’t See
How to Make Navigation Measurable (and Meaningful)
By Sarah Doss, Healthcare Technology Advocate
You can’t manage what you can’t measure, and you certainly can’t improve it.
Patient navigation is a high-impact program that helps patients navigate efficiently through the complexities of the healthcare system. But if you’re not tracking what happens after the handoff - who followed through, who didn’t, and why - you’re left guessing at its effectiveness.
The problem? Most health systems don’t have a clear view into the outcomes their navigation teams are driving. Instead, they rely on anecdotal wins, scattered reports, or manual audits to show value.
That’s not sustainable. And it’s not strategic.
The Risk of Flying Without Metrics
When navigation programs lack outcome visibility, they become hard to justify - especially to clinical and operational leaders who are under pressure to cut costs or prove ROI.
Without clear, consistent data, you risk:
Undervaluing your navigators’ contributions
Losing support for funding or expansion
Missing opportunities to improve care transitions
Failing to identify high-risk patients who fall through the cracks
Even strong programs can stagnate when they can't show their work.
Manual Reporting Won’t Get You There
Some teams try to patch the problem with manual reporting—spreadsheets, shared folders, or end-of-month powerpoints. But these processes are time-consuming, inconsistent, and often disconnected from actual clinical workflows.
The result is:
Outdated information
Incomplete data sets
A blurry picture of what’s happening across the care continuum
And more importantly, it diverts navigators away from their primary role - supporting patients.
What Outcome Visibility Should Look Like
For patient navigation to be measurable and meaningful, your team needs tools that capture the entire journey, automatically and in real-time.
That means:
Tracking referral timelines from order to completion
Seeing which patients are overdue for follow-up
Monitoring communication touchpoints and escalations
Surfacing trends across service lines, teams, and outcomes
Connecting navigation activity directly to patient results (not just tasks completed)
Critically, this data shouldn’t live in a separate system or require IT intervention to access. It should be baked into your workflow - accessible, actionable, and easy to report on.
Measuring What Matters – Without Overwhelming Staff
Outcome visibility doesn’t need to add more burden to your team. The right platform collects and organizes data passively, in the background, as part of your everyday operations.
With careMESH NAVIGATE, your team can:
Monitor navigator performance in real time
Identify and act on missed or stalled referrals
Prove program value with built-in analytics
Identify high-volume referral partners and provide additional support to those practices
Make smarter decisions backed by data, not assumptions
Because measuring outcomes shouldn't be another job – it should be part of how you work.
You Deserve to Know What’s Working
If your navigation program is built on good intentions but runs on guesswork, it’s time to upgrade your visibility. Patients deserve a clear path - and your team deserves credit for helping them navigate it.
👉 Explore how careMESH NAVIGATE gives you the data you need to justify investment, drive improvements, and prove results
