The combination of a top-down and bottom-up strategy ensured participation from all involved departments, a strong foundation and a shared vision on patient centered care. The FTC facilitates sharing information between different medical specialists through both proximity and a shared electronic patient record. The implementation of the FTC comprises a change in organization, but not a change in structure.

Purpose - Guidelines stating maximum waiting times fail to take cancer patients' expectations into account. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to assess patients' expectations and experiences with their waiting time at a fast-track clinic. Design/methodology/approach - Patients were selected using a purposeful sampling strategy and were interviewed four times: before the visit; one day after; two weeks after the visit; and one week after starting treatment. Interviews were audiotaped and independently coded by two researchers. Findings - All patients (n=9) preferred a short waiting time before the first visit; they feared that their disease would spread and believed that cancer warrants priority treatment. Six patients experienced the waiting time as short, one had no expectations and two felt they waited longer than expected; three patients changed this evaluation during the study. Six patients received treatment - four preferred to wait before treatment and two wanted to start treatment immediately. Reasons to wait included putting one's affairs in order, or needing to adjust to the diagnosis. Practical implications - Cancer patients prefer a short waiting time before the first visit but have different expectations and needs regarding waiting time before treatment. Ideally, their expectations are managed by their treating physician to match waiting time reality. Originality/value - This is the first study to assess cancer patients' waiting time experiences and how these experiences change over time. This study paves the way for establishing a framework to better assess patient satisfaction with oncology care waiting time. An important aspect, is managing patients' expectations.

Introduction: Work satisfaction experiencedby physiciansand nursescorrelatespositively with patientsatisfaction.There appear to be nostudies thatfocus onthesatisfactionofphysicians andnurses working togetherwithin a multidisciplinary cancer team. Our aim wastoevaluate the experiences and differences in work satisfactionofthemedical specialists, residentsand nursesat a fast track clinic (FTC) for patients with gastrointestinal malignancies. Methods: A novel questionnaire wasdeveloped basedon structured interviews. Thequestionnairewas sentto all physiciansand nurses (n=77)who worked atthe FTC. Answers weregiven on a5-pointLikertscale.Datawereanalysed using non-parametric tests.Results: The questionnairewas answered by 73respondents (95%overallresponserate).Overallsatisfactionwith the working conditions of our fasttrackoutpatientclinic was high for allgroups, although residents reported a higher emotional strain than specialists. Theimportanceofa multidisciplinary one day diagnosticsoutpatientclinicwas invariably ratedas high to very high byall.Conclusion: Working in a multidisciplinary patient-centredfasttrackoutpatientclinic forgastrointestinalmalignancies wasconsidered an important addition to modern healthcare according to theinvolved physicians andnurses.