Introduction

Multidisciplinary care is considered best practice in the treatment planning and care for patients with cancer.¹

Multidisciplinary team (MDT) meetings involve all relevant health professionals discussing options and making joint decisions about treatment and supportive care plans, taking into account the personal preferences of the patient.

The uptake of MDT meetings in Australia is not known, and collection of standardised data on this aspect can help to ensure that best practice cancer care is delivered irrespective of tumour type, health care setting or geographic location.

Data availability

There are currently no national data available for this indicator. Cancer Australia is progressing the development of this indicator.

Cancer Australia sponsored the inclusion of a MDT Review data item in the Core Cancer (Clinical) Data Set (CCDSS). This was endorsed for inclusion in the CCDSS by the National Health Information Standards and Statistics Committee (NHISSC) in 2015 and is part of the National Health Data Dictionary.

Information about the measure(s):

The recommended measures for monitoring Multidisciplinary care at the national level are:

a. The proportion of new cancer cases discussed at an MDT meeting.

Numerator:  The number of new cases discussed at an MDT meeting in the reporting period

Denominator: The number of new cases referred to the cancer service in the reporting period.

b. The proportion of cases discussed at MDT meetings for which treatment plans are developed by the MDT.

Numerator: The number of new cancer cases discussed at MDT meetings in the reporting period for which there is documented evidence that a treatment plan was developed with input from/by the MDT.

Denominator: The number of new cancer cases discussed at an MDT meeting in the reporting period.

Links to other content:

Cancer Australia - Multidisciplinary care

Cancer Learning website

CCDSS data item: Cancer treatment –multidisciplinary team review – Yes/No/Unknown

References

1. Cancer Australia. All about multidisciplinary care. Sydney: Cancer Australia. Available here.