Interdisciplinary tumor boards in the radiological routine : Current situation based on an online survey in Germany

Abstract

Interdisciplinary tumor boards are periodical conferences, where optimal individual therapy plans are developed among medical experts with different specializations. The presence of aboard-certified radiologist is medically indispensable in almost all relevant boards. In order to systematically evaluate the current workload for radiologists caused by these boards, we evaluated the current situation within German radiology to obtain numbers for future personnel planning. We performed an online survey. We invited all 33German university chairmen and 50 randomly selected head physicians of radiology at level3 hospitals to participate. We had aparticipation rate of 79% (26/33) at university hospitals and 56% (28/50) at of level3 non-university hospitals. The average total number of tumor boards was 3.3/day or 16.7/week at university hospitals and 2.6/day or 13/week at level3 non-university hospitals. We calculated an average time considering preparation and execution as well as the average number of boards of 33.1 h/week for university hospitals and 18.2 h/week for level3 hospitals. This results in a78.8% workload for aboard-certified radiologist at auniversity hospital (regular weekly work time 42 h) and 45.5% work load for level3 hospitals (regular weekly work time 40 h). "Speaking radiology" as in interdisciplinary tumor boards represents afundamental matter of course in radiology. The active participation in boards accomplished by radiologists improves evidence-based patient care. However, given the prevailing scarcity of resources in medicine, the data collected here regarding personnel costs for clinical radiology for participation in tumor boards must be taken into account in future discussions on personnel compensation.