Case study discussion: The important partnership role of Disability Nurse Navigators in the context of abrupt system changes because of COVID-19 pandemic

BACKGROUND: Rapidly implementing telehealth-facilitated healthcare services in a COVID-19 environment generates relational challenges for people with intellectual disability. Disability Nurse Navigators assume a critical intermediary role between the healthcare system and this population. AIM: To discuss the impact that rapid service change, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, can have on people with disability and the work of Disability Nurse Navigators who support them. METHODS: This clinical case discussion comprises two parts. First, a discussion on the impact that COVID-19 pandemic management has had on one person with an intellectual disability is framed using intersecting notions of cumulative complexity and Burden of Treatment Theory. Following, through a Latourian lens, the role of the Disability Nurse Navigator is explored. FINDINGS: During COVID-19, telehealth has proved an important tool for healthcare continuity. Yet, for some people with some disabilities who live with additional and cumulative layers of health and social complexity, the healthcare workload that is transferred to them is exacerbated as they try to interact with disabling infrastructure. DISCUSSION: The Disability Nurse Navigator recognises that people with disability are not independent of the technologies and structures that make up the healthcare system but that they are mutually constitutive. The Disability Nurse Navigator thus works to stabilise the relationships between changed service provision and the healthcare workload and capacity of people with disability. CONCLUSION: The work of the Disability Nurse Navigator ultimately mitigated the disruption and additional treatment burden that is transferred to people with disability because of unintended consequences arising from the rapid introduction of service change.