Archives: Members

Sharon Gentry, RN, MSN, ONN-CG, AOCN, CBCN, CBEC

Novant Health

Ms. Gentry is part of an ongoing successful breast nurse navigator program at the Novant Health Derrick L. Davis Cancer Center. She is an interdisciplinary team member connecting 2 hospitals, a breast mammography clinic, a regional cancer center, a community surgical office and a variety of community resources in Winston-Salem, NC. She received her bachelor’s degree in nursing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her master’s degree in nursing education at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She has been a member of the Academy of Oncology Nurse and Patient Navigators Leadership Council since its inception in 2009 and speaks at their annual and regional conferences on nurse navigation issues. In 2012-2017, she co-chaired the annual AONN+ conferences.She serves on the editorial board of The Oncology Nurse-APN/PA and CONQUER and is the breast editor for the Journal of Oncology Navigation & Survivorship (JONS). She has authored articles in JONS, Cancer, The Oncology Nurse-APN/PA, Journal of Psychosocial Oncology, and CONQUER as well as authored chapters in the books Delivering Patient-Centered Care Across the Continuum and Nurse Navigation Case Studies. She has been a member of the Oncology Nursing Society since 1983. She was a founding member of the Piedmont Triad Oncology Nurse Chapter in 1988 and has served in a leadership role since its inception. She was a participant on the inception of the Oncology Nursing Certified Breast Care Nurse examination and chaired the Oncology Nursing Certification Breast Care Committee 2010-2012. She holds certification as Oncology Nurse Navigation Generalist Certification, Certified Breast Care Nurse, Advanced Oncology Practice Nurse, and Clinical Breast Examination Certified. On nursing navigation commitment, she assisted in organizing the state navigation association—North Carolina Oncology Navigator Association as well as participated on the Standardized Navigation Metrics Task Force, under the AONN+ Evidence into Practice Committee, and assisted in the development of the 35-national evidence-based navigation metrics that all navigation programs—no matter the model of navigation chosen—can utilize to measure success and sustainability of their program. Ms. Gentry travels nationally lecturing on the navigation concept. On the local level, she is a Northwest North Carolina Susan G. Komen volunteer, serves on the board of the local hospice and participates in the Derrick L. Davis Forsyth Regional Cancer Center Oncology Breast Advisory Committee.

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Linda Fleisher, PhD, MPH

Fox Chase Cancer Center

Dr. Fleisher PI, is a Senior Scientist and Associate Research Professor with a focus on health communications, patient engagement and use of technology to support patients and their families. She has appointments in the Research Institute at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Perelman School of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, University of Pennsylvania and the Fox Chase Cancer Center. She has considerable experience in behavioral research, health education, development and evaluation of Ehealth and Mhealth interventions, health disparities and patient/community engagement. She was the Project Director and Principal Investigator for the NCI’s Cancer Information Service in the tri-state area for over 17 years, serving over ½ million callers with in-depth information and resources addressing the continuum of cancer prevention, risk, detection, treatment and survivorship. She also founded Fox Chase Cancer Center’s Patient Resource Education Center in 2000, which is one of the first multi-media patient education programs at a comprehensive cancer center, serving over 30,000 people. The REC includes a LiveHelp online program for patients and consumers to ask questions with trained health educators and listings of recommended websites that are evaluated using a scientifically developed tool. She led the development of numerous patient education and decision making interventions for cancer patients and survivors as well as a current study focused on informed decision making in clinical trials. She has developed technical guides on health literacy and patient navigation for professionals and brings these skills and knowledge to the development of patient education tools and resources. Her work has required building networks and partnerships with diverse audiences, including health care organizations, software developers, patients, and community leaders, including a tri-state health disparities network under the NCI’s Cancer Information Service and the current Cancer Health Disparities Network serving 19 states. She was Co-PI on the Pennsylvania Patient Navigation Demonstration Project and co-founder of the PA Navigator Network. She has served as member of the Academy of Oncology Nurse and Patient Navigator’s Steering Committee since 2010, and is the co-chair of the Technology and Innovation Committee. She joined the faculty at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and is leveraging her extensive background in health communications, digital health and partnerships to lead a digital health initiative focused on translating knowledge of evaluation and evidence to health app developers, distributors and consumers to ensure that the explosion of mobile health tools are evidence-based and their impact on health improvement are validated.

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Elizabeth Calhoun, PhD, MEd

University of Illinois Chicago 

Dr. Calhoun, PhD MEd, is currently the Assistant Vice Chancellor for Population Health Sciences, Office of the Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs for the University of Illinois Chicago and in previous role as the Associate Director of Population Sciences at the University of Arizona Cancer Center. In addition, she is the past Executive Director for the Center for Population Science and Discovery. She was the Director of the Center of Excellence in Eliminating Disparities funded by NIMHD and the Co-Director for the Center for Population Health and Health Disparities funded by NCI at the University of Illinois at Chicago. In addition, she was the principal investigator of an NCI-funded study to test the efficacy of a patient navigation program on improving compliance with cancer care in the largest network of federally qualified health centers in the country. She is an experienced health services researcher with expertise in health disparities. She was a member of the Commission on Cancer standards committee that requires community assessment and patient navigation services for accreditation. She has lead the Illinois training for navigators and certified application counselors and evaluation for the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in Illinois from 2013-2016.  She also was an editor of a book entitled Patient Navigation- Overcoming Barriers to Care, which offers a practical guide to creating, implementing and evaluating successful programs.

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Linda Burhansstipanov, MSPH, DrPH

Native American Cancer Research Corporation

Linda Burhansstipanov, (Cherokee Nation) has worked in public health since 1971. She taught at universities for 18 years (California State University Long Beach and UCLA). She developed and implemented the Native American Cancer Research Program at the National Cancer Institute from 1989-1993. She worked at the AMC Cancer Research Center in Denver for 5 years before founding Native American Cancer Research Corporation (non-profit). She also is the President of Native American Cancer Initiatives, Incorporated (minority womans for-profit). She is the principal investigator and subcontractor for >3 NIH grants and PI for a NIMHD 2017 Phase I SBIR to develop a tablet app to evaluate Patient Navigation Services. She also is on the NIMHD Scientific Advisory Council. She serves on multiple federal advisory boards. She has over 125 peer-reviewed publications, of which most address Native American cancer, genetics, CBPR, evaluation, patient navigation, survivorship, public health and data issues.

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Harold P. Freeman, MD

Harold P. Freeman Patient Navigation Institute

Honorary Chair

National Navigation Roundtable Harold P. Freeman, M.D. is president and CEO of the Harold P.Freeman Patient Navigation Institute in New York City. He is Professor of Surgery Emeritus, Columbia University and previously served as Director of Surgery at Harlem Hospital and Professor of Clinical Surgery at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. Dr. Freeman is a diplomat of the American Board of Surgery and a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons. He is also a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Freeman is founder and Chairman Emeritus of the Ralph Lauren Center for Cancer Care and Prevention and founder and Medical Director of the Breast Examination Center of Harlem, a program of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. He was the first director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Center to Reduce Cancer Health Disparities and served as Associate Director of the NCI for a five-year period ending in 2005. He served as national president of the American Cancer Society in 1988-89 and he was the chief architect of the American Cancer Society’s initiative on Cancer in the Poor.

The American Cancer Society established the Dz Harold P. Freeman Award dz in 1990 to recognize his work in this area. Dr. Freeman pioneered the patient navigation concept and model which addresses disparities in access to timely diagnosis and treatment, particularly among poor and uninsured people. Based on this model the Patient Navigator and Chronic Disease Prevention Act was signed into law by President Bush in 2005. Dr. Freeman was appointed by Presidents George Bush and Clinton to serve as Chairman of the United States President’s Cancer Panel for an 11-year period.

He is a Lasker Laure ate, and received the Lasker Award for Public Service in 2000 for Dz enlightening scientists and the public about the relation-ship between race, poverty and cancer”. In 2015, Dr. Freeman was named a “Giant of Cancer Care” by OncLive.

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Andrea Dwyer, BS

University of Colorado

Chair of National Navigation Roundtable

National Navigation Roundtable Andrea (Andi) Dwyer is the Co-Director of the Colorado Colorectal Screening Program at the University of Colorado Cancer Center and Program Director at the Colorado School of Public Health. She has worked for nearly twelve years in the area of cancer survivorship and colorectal cancer prevention. Andi is also an instructor for the Colorado Patient Navigation Training.

Andi is the Co-Chair of Scientific and Evidence Based Health Interventions and a Steering committee member of the National Colorectal Cancer Roundtable. She also serves as the Director of Health Promotion for Fight Colorectal Cancer, focusing on research and patient education. Ms. Dwyer is honored to serve as Chair for the National Patient Navigator Roundtable of the of the American Cancer Society.

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Tracy Battaglia, MD, MPH

Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health

Advisor to the Chair, National Navigation Roundtable

Dr. Battaglia is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health where she is Interim Chief of the Section of General Internal Medicine. She also serves as the Director of the Women’s Health Unit, a national Center of Excellence in Women’s Health where she has achieved national recognition for improving the health of vulnerable women at risk for delays in care. As a practicing internist and breast health specialist at Boston Medical Center, the largest safety net medical center in New England, her approach to health disparities focuses largely on engaging the community as partners in the research process.

She has 17 years of experience designing, implementing and evaluating community-engaged Patient Navigation programs to reduce delays across the continuum of cancer care, including co-leading the Boston site of the NCI’s national Patient Navigation Research Program in which we recruited over 3,000 participants from Boston’s low-income populations accounting for nearly 30% of the data to the national database. The American Cancer Society and the Patient Center Outcomes Research Institute support her research to study innovations in the delivery of patient navigation for low income cancer patients.

As Director of the Community Engagement Program for the Boston University Clinical and Translational Science Award, she is leading a cooperative study funded by the National Center to Advance Translational Science (NCATS) in partnership with the four Massachusetts Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA)hubs (Boston University, Harvard University, Tufts University and University of Massachusetts) to support a City-wide dissemination study to reduce breast cancer disparities through a patient navigation network. Dr. Battaglia is also long-time volunteer leader for the American Cancer Society, where she recently served as Chair for the New England Division Board of Directors.

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