Navi

Health Guide
Washington

Navi has been with firsthand for 16 months as of May 2026, and she found her way here after years of trying to deliver the kind of care she believed people actually deserved. Her path into healthcare started early. Her mom was a nurse, and Navi began volunteering in healthcare settings as a teenager. She went on to spend eight years as an RN in the emergency department before moving into long term care and then community health.

It was in the Emergency Department that Navi first felt the weight of a system stretched too thin. Patients would come in already in crisis, and there was rarely time to do more than put a bandage on the immediate need. The disconnect between what people needed and what the system could offer stayed with her. Community healthcare felt closer to the kind of care she wanted to give, but the volume of patients and the limits of what she could do from inside a clinic left her wishing for more. She couldn't always make sure someone picked up their prescription, made it to their next appointment, or had the support to follow through at home. The walls of the office were the edge of what she could control.

When she came across firsthand's care model, something clicked. Here was a team that could meet people in their homes, sit with them long enough to actually understand what they needed, and walk alongside them between appointments. Navi started by seeing individuals in person in Tacoma, providing primary care, behavioral health, and care coordination, and now serves as a centralized health guide supporting multiple offices.

For Navi, the peer support model is what makes firsthand different. She watches every day as her teammates with lived experience of serious mental illness and/or substance use disorder build trust with individuals in ways no clinical credential can. She's open about not sharing that lived experience herself, and she's found that being honest about it, alongside the trust her peer colleagues build, opens the door to relationships that might otherwise stay closed. That kind of partnership, between clinical care and peer support, is what made firsthand the place she wanted to be.

When she's not working, Navi is home with her husband and two kids, or out hiking somewhere quiet.