When a friend's family was confronted with a rare cancer diagnosis for their son last year, the first care navigation step they took was on Facebook. It's not surprising. When consumers search for information about buying a flatscreen TV or booking a trip to Italy, their inclination is to go online – and stay there. The internet enables them to make confident choices using easy and trusted tools to gather and analyze information. Search engines are intuitive and quickly take people to the information that satisfies their needs and interests, even if the results aren't always high quality, highly accurate, or personalized to their needs.

But when faced with far more serious choices – parsing the spectrum of issues from health to wellbeing; finding the right physician or therapist; knowing which ones are in-network and taking patients; understanding the cost and efficacy of different therapeutic options – individuals are largely operating in the dark, frustrated by complicated systems that don't enable them to easily understand their options. People need an easy button. What can be done to make the navigation experience as accessible as consumer shopping? And what should employers ask when deciding what navigation tools will best serve their members' needs?