Abstract
Multidisciplinary team (MDT) model in cancer care was introduced and endorsed to ensure that care delivery is consistent with the best available evidence. Over the last few years, regular MDT meetings have become a standard practice in oncology and gained the status of the key decision-making forum for patient management. Despite the fact that cancer MDT meetings are well accepted by clinicians, concerns are raised over the paucity of good-quality evidence on their overall impact. There are also concerns over lack of the appropriate support for this important but overburdened decision-making platform. The growing acceptance by clinical community of the health information technology in recent years has created new opportunities and possibilities of using advanced clinical decision support (CDS) systems to realise full potential of cancer MDT meetings. In this paper, we present targeted summary of the available evidence on the impact of cancer MDT meetings, discuss the reported challenges, and explore the role that a CDS technology could play in addressing some of these challenges.
Highlights
Background of MDT Meetings in CancerManagementMultidisciplinary team meetings are known as tumour boards, multidisciplinary cancer conferences, multidisciplinary case reviews, or multidisciplinary clinics, in different health care systems
We present targeted summary of the available evidence on the impact of cancer MDT meetings, discuss the reported challenges, and explore the role that a clinical decision support (CDS) technology could play in addressing some of these challenges
These different terms may represent the variations in the organisational structure, membership, approach, focus, and the decision processes of these meetings [1]; they all provide a forum for multidisciplinary cancer teams to regularly convene and discuss the diagnostic and treatment aspects of patient care
Summary
Multidisciplinary team meetings are known as tumour boards, multidisciplinary cancer conferences, multidisciplinary case reviews, or multidisciplinary clinics, in different health care systems. These different terms may represent the variations in the organisational structure, membership, approach, focus, and the decision processes of these meetings [1]; they all provide a forum for multidisciplinary cancer teams to regularly convene and discuss the diagnostic and treatment aspects of patient care. Tumour boards have existed in the United States for the last 50 years [2] Until recently, their primary goal was educational rather than improving patient care. Many other European countries and Australia were quick to adopt the MDT model for cancer care [5, 6]
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