Impact of a technology enhanced breast multidisciplinary cancer conference

Multidisciplinary cancer conferences (MCCs) are the standard approach for managing complex breast cases and technology can facilitate these meetings. The objectives of this study were to assess the impact of technology on quality of patient information, case deliberation, and various outcome measures.

We conducted a prospective study from September 2020 to February 2022, before and after implementation of a digital platform for tumor boards. We collected observational and survey data to assess its impact on quality of breast MCC case presentation and discussion. We also reviewed medical records to compare outcomes including rate of change in care plans, compliance of care plans with national guidelines, concordance of treatment received with MCC recommendations and time from MCC presentation to treatment. Comparisons were made using the Mann-Whitney U and Fisher's exact tests.

There were 39 pre- and 47 post-digital platform patient cases. We found that implementation of technology led to an improvement in the quality of the MCCs (median composite scores: 56.9 vs 68.4; p < 0.001). Specific components significantly improved included case history, reason for presentation, radiology and pathology presentations, and medical oncology contribution to case discussions (mean scores: 3.4 vs 3.9, 3.3 vs 3.9, 2.7 vs 4.1, 3.1 vs 4.2; (p < 0.001), & 3.7 vs 4.1; p = 0.05). There was also an improvement in the frequency of arrival at consensus (71.8 % vs 95.7 %; p < 0.012).

A tumor board digital platform was shown to improve the quality of presented patient information, physician engagement, and arrival at consensus at multidisciplinary breast cancer conferences.

Multidisciplinary cancer conferences (MCCs) play an important role in breast cancer management. We evaluated the impact of a tumor board-specific technology on the quality of breast MCCs and subsequent care. We found that technology improved the quality of information presented and physician engagement.