Patient
navigators from the Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center and
Barnes-Jewish Hospital saw their “superstar” in person last week
during a lecture held at Chase Hotel in St. Louis.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Perhaps it’s the way Apple aficionados would feel if they had gotten to meet the late Steve Jobs in person.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Dr. Harold P. Freeman’s genius is not in revolutionary technology – it’s with people. Very sick people.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Freeman pioneered the system of personal care and service provided by patient navigators to prevent sick people and poor people from falling through the cracks in health care delivery.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Beyond his formal training – an A.B. degree from the Catholic University of America, and a M.D. degree from Howard University – Freeman said his “real education” in understanding people, humanity and poverty began in 1967at Harlem Hospital in New York.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>“I saw women who were coming to Harlem Hospital in that early time period 1967 to the ‘70s with very, very advanced breast cancer, sometimes so advanced that you could not see the breast – all you could see was the ulcerated mass,” Freeman said.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>“This had a deep effect on me. It really was the reason that my career shifted from just being a surgeon to the point of trying to understand the population that was coming into Harlem Hospital.”
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>At the time, Freeman said all of the people who came in were poor and black. He worked to disentangle the relationship between poverty, race and cancer.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>When he became director of surgery at Harlem hospital, Freeman started a secret free clinic for poor women on Saturdays on the 7th floor of the hospital, with $25,000 in support from the American Cancer Society, but soon his secret got out.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Freeman had some explaining to do to the Health and Hospitals Corporation, overseer of the 11 public hospitals in New York at the time. But they liked what Freeman was doing, and provided the mechanism to make the Freeman Free Breast Clinic legitimate
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>“‘When patient comes into your little clinic on the 7th floor, give them this number 8133 – put in on the chart and send it directly to the record room,’” Freeman said he was told. “‘By virtue of that, they will officially be a patient with this hospital.’”
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Freeman said that clinic has opened every Saturday morning since 1979.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Freeman credits watching an interview featuring hip-hop mogul Jay Z, where he explained the difference between rap and hip hop, for his own distinction between advocacy and navigation.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Rap is what you say; hip-hop is what you do.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>“Advocates say things that may be positive – navigators do things that are positive,” Freeman said.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>In 2007 Freeman founded the Harold P. Freeman Patient Navigation Institute in New York City, which supports training for patient navigators and offers standards and customizable best practices through its core principles to help save the lives from cancer and chronic illnesses.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Those principles include communication about the need for recommended examinations and provide access to those exams. Freeman said navigators were picked based on understanding and compassion, not education.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>The second principle is to eliminate barriers throughout the health continuum, such as financial barriers.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>The third function involves removing barriers involving the complexity of the medical system in order for patients with suspicious findings to receive timely diagnosis and treatment.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Freeman is chairman emeritus and founder of the Ralph Lauren Center for Cancer Care and Prevention in New York, a senior advisor to the National Cancer Institute and medical director of the Breast Examination Center of Harlem at Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Freeman is a past president of the national American Cancer Society and has earned numerous awards and honors.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Navigators see him as a humble man of amazing talent and intellect who cares whether sick people receive the health care they need and deserve in a timely manner.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Nedra Bramlett Stevenson trained under Freeman in New York at his institute.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>“He gave us more information about navigation that we didn’t even know about,” Bramlett Stevenson said. “When we got back, we had a plan on how to revamp our program. And it grew – it doubled in size. We now see close to 4,000 patients a year.”
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>For more information on patient navigation, go to
“http://www.hpfreemanpni.org/”>http://www.hpfreemanpni.org
