P-P50 Analysis of the efficiency of the hepatobiliary multidisciplinary team meeting to identify quality improvement strategies
Authors: Nadeem Nabeegh , Barrie Jenifer , Bell Richard , Shah Nehal 
Published: December 2021

Background

The multidisciplinary team meeting is the mainstay of management of patients with hepatopancreatobiliary (HPB) cancer and is considered the gold standard of care. Disadvantages of these meetings include large numbers of patients to be discussed covering multiple super-specialities over a short time span. This can lead to decision fatigue amongst clinicians. Logistical factors such as information technology and presence of clinicians with relevant expertise may also hamper the progress of the meeting. The aim of this study was to analyse the efficiency of our HPB MDT with a view to identifying multi-factorial quality improvement interventions.

Methods

13 weeks of prospectively generated multidisciplinary team meeting outcomes were analysed from our departments weekly 150-minute long MDT meeting between 01/06/21 and 24/08/21. Patient demographics and pathology were noted. The number of overall discussions in each meeting were recorded.  Number of patients in each sub-category (1. Regional pancreatic cancer service, 2. Hepatocellular carcinoma or liver adenoma, 3. pancreatic cystic neoplasms, 4. Gallbladder cancer and cholangiocarcinoma, 5. Pancreatic neuroendocrine tumours and 6. Other) were recorded. The number of patients without a recorded outcome was collated and reasons for no outcome being generated were categorised.

Results

174/ 869 patients (20 %) did not receive an outcome from the meeting and were carried forward to the next week. Of the patients carried forward to the next week; 33/177 (18.6%) had no available histopathology following biopsies. Of these 33 patients, 23 did not have post-operative histopathology yet available for discussion. 

82/177 (46 %) patients did not have the relevant investigations performed or available to move the discussion forward. These investigations were wide ranging and included radiological and endoscopic interventions. Of these, 19 patients (2 % over-all) had not had images sent across from a peripheral centre. 3 patients required both histology and radiology for further discussion.

59/869 (6%) of patients were not discussed due to time constraints. This equated to an average of 4 patients per meeting. 

Conclusions

This study demonstrates the breadth and depth of a general HPB MDT. Strategies are required to simplify the MDT process to allow for time for discussion of the most complex patients, in particular those requiring surgery. Multifactorial reasons for a lack of MDT outcome at any single meeting have been found in this study. This signifies that a more robust triage process involving multiple specialities needs to be considered. Logistical factors also need to be in place allowing for transfer of relevant images from peripheral units. Histopathology reporting takes time and appropriate expectations for the availability of these results needs to be in place. The next step in this study is to identify and implement effective quality improvement strategies to improve outcome rates and allow more time for complex case discussions.