RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in cancer multidisciplinary team meetings: an explorative study based on EU healthcare professionals
JF BMJ Open
JO BMJ Open
FD British Medical Journal Publishing Group
SP e051181
DO 10.1136/bmjopen-2021-051181
VO 12
IS 10
A1 Joan Prades
A1 Cristina Coll-Ortega
A1 Lissandra Dal Lago
A1 Karolien Goffin
A1 Eugen Javor
A1 Claudio Lombardo
A1 Johan de Munter
A1 Jordi Ponce
A1 Daniele Regge
A1 Ramón Salazar
A1 Vincenzo Valentini
A1 Josep M Borras
YR 2022
UL http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/12/10/e051181.abstract
AB Objectives Multidisciplinary teams in cancer care are increasingly using information and communication technology (ICT), hospital health information system (HIS) functionalities and ICT-driven care components. We aimed to explore the use of these tools in multidisciplinary team meetings (MTMs) and to identify the critical challenges posed by their adoption based on the perspective of professionals representatives from European scientific societies.Design This qualitative study used discussion of cases and focus group technique to generate data. Thematic analysis was applied.Setting Healthcare professionals working in a multidisciplinary cancer care environment.Participants Selection of informants was carried out by European scientific societies in accordance with professionals’ degree of experience in adopting the implementation of ICT and from different health systems.Results Professionals representatives of 9 European scientific societies were involved. Up to 10 ICTs, HIS functionalities and care components are embedded in the informational and decision-making processes along three stages of MTMs. ICTs play a key role in opening MTMs to other institutions (eg, by means of molecular tumour boards) and information types (eg, patient-reported outcome measures), and in contributing to the internal efficiency of teams. While ICTs and care components have their own challenges, the information technology context is characterised by the massive generation of unstructured data, the lack of interoperability between systems from different hospitals and HIS that are conceived to store and classify information rather than to work with it.Conclusions The emergence of an MTM model that is better integrated in the wider health system context and incorporates inputs from patients and support systems make traditional meetings more dynamic and interconnected. Although these changes signal a second transition in the development process of multidisciplinary teams, they occur in a context marked by clear gaps between the information and management needs of MTMs and the adequacy of current HIS.All data relevant to the study are included in the article or uploaded as online supplemental information. Qualitative data generated in this study will not be reused under any conditions.