Virtual Clinical and Precision Medicine Tumor Boards—Cloud-Based Platform–Mediated Implementation of Multidisciplinary Reviews Among Oncology Centers in the COVID-19 Era: Protocol for an Observational Study

Abstract

Background Multidisciplinary tumor boards play a pivotal role in the patient-centered clinical management and in the decision-making process to provide best evidence-based, diagnostic, and therapeutic care to patients with cancer. Among the barriers to achieve an efficient multidisciplinary tumor board, lack of time and geographical distance play a major role. Therefore, the elaboration of an efficient virtual multidisciplinary tumor board (VMTB) is a key point to successfully obtain an oncology team and implement a network among health professionals and institutions. This need is stronger than ever during the COVID-19 pandemic. Objective This paper presents a research protocol for an observational study focused on exploring the structuring process and the implementation of a multi-institutional VMTB in Sicily, Italy. Other endpoints include analysis of cooperation between participants, adherence to guidelines, patients’ outcomes, and patient satisfaction. Methods This protocol encompasses a pragmatic, observational, multicenter, noninterventional, prospective trial. The study’s programmed duration is 5 years, with a half-yearly analysis of the primary and secondary objectives’ measurements. Oncology care health professionals from various oncology subspecialties at oncology departments in multiple hospitals (academic and general hospitals as well as tertiary centers and community hospitals) are involved in a nonhierarchic manner. VMTB employs an innovative, virtual, cloud-based platform to share anonymized medical data that are discussed via a videoconferencing system both satisfying security criteria and compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. Results The protocol is part of a larger research project on communication and multidisciplinary collaboration in oncology units and departments spread in the Sicily region. The results of this study will particularly focus on the organization of VMTBs, involving oncology units present in different hospitals spread in the area, and creating a network to allow best patient care pathways and a hub-and-spoke relationship. The present results will also include data concerning organization skills and pitfalls, barriers, efficiency, number, and types with respect to clinical cases and customer satisfaction. Conclusions VMTB represents a unique opportunity to optimize patient management through a patient-centered approach. An efficient virtualization and data-banking system is potentially time-saving, a source for outcome data, and a detector of possible holes in the hull of clinical pathways. The observations and results from this VMTB study may hopefully be useful to design nonclinical and organizational interventions that enhance multidisciplinary decision-making in oncology. International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID) DERR1-10.2196/26220

An IT Platform Supporting Rectal Cancer Tumor Board Activities: Implementation Process and Impact Analysis

“…This is in line with what is described in the literature. Indeed, the data-banking system and virtual meetings have been reported by Blasi et al 2021 to be time-saving [ 24 ]. In addition, the Care Manager, as a dedicated professional figure, assumes a key role in the collection of the documentation to be examined and analyzed during the multidisciplinary meeting, the data entry and reporting of patient’s clinical history.…”

“…This is not surprising, since we do not expect that MTB impacts on cancer stage at the time of diagnosis (which is mostly influenced by primary prevention and screening), but rather on clinical decision making and, therefore, on clinical outcomes. Indeed, scientific evidence shows that promoting a digital aid for MTB strengthens the health professionals’ network and the multidisciplinary approach to the decision-making process to provide the best cancer care by improving patient management plans thanks to the combined knowledge of different specialists [ 24 ]. As regards clinical decision making, our study showed a significant increase in the percentage of patients undergoing radio-chemotherapy.…”

“…In clinical practice, in the last few years, several digital platforms have been studied and implemented for the management of treatment and well-being of cancer patients [ 17 , 18 ], or in the management of other non-communicable diseases [ 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 ], striving for safety and quality of care [ 23 ]. However, the adoption of digital tools in patient management within multidisciplinary teams is something that is still little considered [ 24 ]. Building on the potential of this application, arising from the synergistic combination of the benefits of both digital tools and the interplay between specialists from different disciplines, as explained above, this paper reports on the experience of the RC-MTB of the Comprehensive Cancer Centre (CCC) of the Fondazione Policlinico “A.…”

Data-driven support to decision-making in molecular tumour boards for lymphoma: A design science approach

“…Many articles highlight the need for scalable informatics tools to support MTBs ( 1 , 26 , 27 ). Another essential need is data security and data privacy, to be able to ensure anonymity and secure sensitive data ( 26 , 28 ).…”

“…Many articles highlight the need for scalable informatics tools to support MTBs ( 1 , 26 , 27 ). Another essential need is data security and data privacy, to be able to ensure anonymity and secure sensitive data ( 26 , 28 ). The challenges of clinical interpretation of genetic variants based on manual investigation of extensive literature may also be served by automated solutions ( 1 , 28 , 29 ).…”