Background: Multidisciplinary care is a key enabler in the provision of high quality care for cancer patients. Despite compelling evidence supporting their benefit to patients and for providers, multidisciplinary cancer conferences (MCC) are not universally occurring. Team composition of MCC reflects the multidisciplinary nature of the body. Lack of nursing input can have a negative impact on team decision making. The objective of this study was to evaluate multidisciplinary care and adherence to national recommendations at a medium-sized hospital through a clinical audit of cancer conferences and clinical records.
Methods: A total of 77 multidisciplinary cancer conferences were visited and 496 electronic health records were reviewed. The regularity of meetings and multidisciplinary attendance were evaluated. Each electronic health record was checked to verify documented prospective discussion before any treatment was started.
Results: Nine multidisciplinary teams meet on a weekly or biweekly basis at the hospital with an average number of ten people and six different specialties represented. Average duration of meetings was 46.8 min. Though most patients (64.5%) were discussed at some point at the relevant cancer conference, only 40% had a documented multidisciplinary team discussion prior to the first treatment. Pathological stage (pTNM) was documented in 53.6% of clinical records.
Conclusions: Nursing representatives should be included as usual attendees at cancer conferences. Prospective discussion of all cancer cases should be encouraged. Use of checklists and systematic collection of key information, specifically cancer staging, could improve clinical documentation in the electronic clinical record.