<p>Health Professionals’ Views on Key Enabling Factors and Barriers of National Multidisciplinary Team Meetings in Cancer Care: A Qualitative Study</p>

Abstract

Purpose: Multidisciplinary team meetings (MDTMs) are an integral component of cancer care. Increasingly, virtual MDTMs are used to grant high-quality treatment recommendations across health-care regions, which expands and develops the local MDTM team to a regional or national expert network. We investigated health professionals' experiences from national, virtual MDTMs for rare cancer with a focus on key enabling factors and barriers. Methods: Health professionals who participate in seven national, virtual MDTMs in Swedish health-care responded to a questionnaire exploring key enabling factors, barriers and opportunities for MDTM development. Conventional content analysis was used to identify thematic categories based on free-text responses. Results: Participants´perspectives could be assigned into three categories ie, a national arena with potential for comprehensive knowledge and collaboration, prerequisites for decision-making and organization and responsibilities. These categories consisted of nine sub-categories that referred to, eg, collective competence, resources, clinical research, case discussion, meeting climate, patientrelated information, MDTMs potential, referral and technical insufficiencies. Conclusion: National, virtual MDTMs represent a new multidisciplinary collaborative arena that introduces benefits as well as challenges. Consideration of key enabling factors and barriers may ease implementation and further optimize MDTMs in cancer care.

Virtual Multidisciplinary Tumor Boards: A Narrative Review Focused on Lung Cancer

“…Successful implementation depended on the reliability and adaptability of the CCDSs and key users' involvement in the implementation process. A simultaneous Swedish qualitative study analyzed the views on enabling and impeding factors for multidisciplinary care of health professionals participating in a nationwide vMTB on rare cancers [34]. Investigators examined the free-text opinions to identify three thematic categories: decision-making, organization, and responsibilities.…”

Multidisciplinary Joint Clinics: Talent Wins Games, but Teamwork Wins Championships

“…Such opportunities transform into great platforms for multilateral teaching and learning. [11,16,19] Over a period of time, one can recognize patterns of cases and issues discussed in the VTBs, highlighting challenges in cancer care, including resource, skill, and health personnel constraints, across different parts of the country.…”

“…The drawbacks specific to VTBs are related to the dysfunctional technology, concerns about confidentiality, issues pertaining to sharing confidential patient data, issues with a breach in cybersecurity, coordination challenges between hospitals, and limited patient centeredness among others. [11,19,22] Nevertheless, the advantages far outweigh the drawbacks, and hence, multidisciplinary cancer patient care must be implemented whether through physical meetings, VTBs, or a hybrid model where people can participate either physically or virtually depending on their comfort. This approach also helps to share the liability through collective responsibility.…”

“…In addition, the hospital should also provide remuneration for the time spent in the joint clinics so that the oncologists participate without any hesitation. [9][10][11] In the government/charitable hospitals where the paycheck of the treating oncologist may not depend on the total number of patients treated/income generated by the oncologist, there may be less resistance to starting such clinics. On the contrary, in the corporate hospital set-up, infrastructure and space for the clinic may be relatively easier to get but the hospital administration may not favor setting-up joint clinics as they do not directly generate income for the hospital.…”

<p>Patient Participation in Multidisciplinary Tumor Conferences from the Providers’ Perspective: Is It Feasible in Routine Cancer Care?</p>

“…4 Among providers, more effective coordination of healthcare and decision-making was found, which can be explained by a more efficient diagnostic discussion within a multidisciplinary team. [5][6][7][8][9] From the providers' perspective, making recommendations in MTCs is seen as part of physicians' professional self-concept. 10,11 Weekly meetings enable team-based decisionmaking and better communication between providers of different professions.…”