Many Veterans in Veterans Affairs (VA) care are overdue for gastrointestinal (GI) cancer screenings. Completion of colonoscopy after abnormal stool-based screening test and surveillance for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) among Veterans with cirrhosis vary from 20% to 80% across VA facilities. Patient navigation (PN) is an evidence-based approach to improve cancer screenings. While PN has improved GI cancer screenings generally, PN practices across VA, and for cancer screening specifically, is not well understood. To improve GI cancer screening rates by leveraging PN resources across VA, the National Gastroenterology and Hepatology Program partnered with the Office of Healthcare Transformation to launch an integrated project team. The team was tasked with conducting a mixed method environmental scan to understand the factors associated with GI cancer screening rates, with a focus on PN practices. This environmental scan included data collection from existing national resources, a questionnaire, and semi-structured interviews with navigators and leaders across VA. Surveys were collected from all VA facilities (n=139) and regional resource hubs (n=18). 54% of facilities had PN resources for HCC surveillance, 49% for colorectal cancer (CRC) screening, and 45% for other cancer screening programs. Among VA facilities with the highest HCC screening rates, 71% of sites incorporate PN and among those with the highest rates of timely colonoscopy after abnormal stool test, 50% used PN. Navigation activities varied by cancer screening type but were typically conducted by registered nurses, who completed 70% of all PN activities for HCC surveillance and 86% of all CRC screening activities. Semi-structured interviews helped to define strong practices for PN programs in VA. These included tailored approaches to address patient and system-level barriers to care, care coordination within a single VA facility, coordination of inter-facility care, optimizing appointment scheduling, and result follow-up. Additionally, incorporating shared decision-making practices and leveraging population health management tools facilitated the success of PN. Recommendations for promotion of PN by facility leadership include supporting standardized documentation of PN activities and workload, dedicated time and human resources for PN activities, direct access to imaging and diagnostic resources, provision of training, and clearly defined care functions, processes, and standard work. The varied performance on GI cancer screening completion across VA facilities and the association of PN with higher rates of GI cancer screening completion, in conjunction with the lack of standardization for PN across VA suggests the need to standardize and disseminate best practices in PN to ensure consistent and equitable care. This comprehensive, mixed methods, national assessment of PN for cancer screening in VA revealed several compelling reasons for investing in improvements and implementing identified strong practices for PN as a key strategy to improve GI cancer screening completion nationally. A Patient Navigation toolkit was developed to disseminate strong practices. The toolkit is currently in use by 12 VA sites. Use of the toolkit and its impact on these sites will be assessed after 12 months, to identify how this approach supports facilities in improving GI Cancer screening completion and impacts Veterans’ experiences with care.