Journal of Multidisciplinary Healthcare (Feb 2020)
Health Professionals’ Views on Key Enabling Factors and Barriers of National Multidisciplinary Team Meetings in Cancer Care: A Qualitative Study
Abstract
Linn Rosell, 1, 2 Jessica Wihl, 1–3 Mef Nilbert, 2, 4, 5 Marlene Malmström 6, 7 1Regional Cancer Centre South, Region Skåne, Lund, Sweden; 2Lund University, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Clinical Sciences Lund, Lund, Sweden; 3Department of Oncology and Hematology, Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden; 4Clinical Research Centre, Hvidovre Hospital and Copenhagen University, Copenhagen, Denmark; 5Danish Cancer Society Research Centre, Copenhagen, Denmark; 6The Institute for Palliative Care, Lund University and Region Skåne, Lund, Sweden; 7Lund University, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Health Sciences, Lund, SwedenCorrespondence: Marlene MalmströmLund University, Department of Health Sciences, Box 157, Lund 22 100, SwedenTel +46 46 175950Email [email protected]: 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, patient-related 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.Keywords: tumor board, rare cancer, healthcare team, treatment recommendation, decision-making, content analysis
