Multidisciplinary boards: Survey on the current situation and needs of Spanish radiologists

The increasing participation of radiologists in multidisciplinary boards brings about advantages, challenges and specific needs. The aim of this paper is to identify the boards in which radiologists participate and to detect the needs, problems and opportunities that these boards pose for our specialty.

The Spanish Society of Medical Radiology (SERAM) conducted an ad-hoc survey that was distributed among members and through social networks. The results were analysed with Stata® v14.2 (StataCorp, Texas, USA).

Between 15 November 2022 and 24 December 2022, we received 743 anonymous responses with 93.7% coming from SERAM members (642 radiologists and 101 radiology trainees). Among the specialists, 82.7% regularly participate in one or more boards (92.5% oncology/50.7% non-oncology/43.3% both), which implies two or more meetings per week for 41.6% of the respondents. Both radiologists who regularly participate in boards and those who do not, are very positive about this aspect of professional activity and agree on its benefits. However, the specialists who do participate, lack enough allocated time and information to prepare cases prior to the meeting. Although attendance is often recorded (69.7%), it is generally not included in the work plan (20.5% of physicians and 30.8% of middle managers, p = 0.028). Regarding operational functioning, according to 46.9% of respondents there is no record of imaging tests reviewed, and the handling of discrepancies within radiology departments is poor (written recommendations and review sessions are only available to 14.3% and 7.7% of respondents respectively).

The radiologists surveyed report the high impact of multidisciplinary committees on their workload and clinical decisions. They mention a number of problems, some of which are specific to radiology, which can undermine efficiency and safety. These include work organisation, lack of time and problems of accessibility and the recording of imaging tests and other medical record data.