Virtual sarcoma disease multidisciplinary team: a successful experience in the era of telemedicine and COVID-19 in Italy

TL;DR

This paper shows that virtual meetings for managing rare sarcoma cancers in Italy were as effective as in-person meetings, even during the pandemic.

Contribution

The study demonstrates the successful adaptation of multidisciplinary sarcoma care to virtual formats during the pandemic.

Findings

Virtual meetings maintained high satisfaction and effective decision-making among healthcare professionals.

Participation rates and discussion quality improved during virtual meetings compared to pre-pandemic in-person meetings.

Virtual meetings led to more new cases being discussed, indicating better engagement and efficiency.

Abstract

Due to their rarity and complexity sarcomas require specialized multidisciplinary team management. COVID-19 pandemic brought to a rapid implementation of telemedicine and activation of digital tools. This study evaluates the perception of virtual disease multidisciplinary team among healthcare professionals of an European rare cancer referral center.

An online survey was administered to the participants of Regina Elena National Cancer Institute’s Sarcoma disease multidisciplinary team meetings held between 2020 and 2022. It was composed of 40 questions comparing face-to-face and virtual meetings. Data from the Institutional disease multidisciplinary team from 2019 to 2022 were also analyzed retrospectively to compare the pre-covid, covid, and post-covid phases.

Twenty-two healthcare professionals answered the survey. In their opinion, decision-making process was not affected by virtual modality (86.0%). Regarding virtual meetings 90.0% were highly/moderately satisfied with depth of discussion, 95.0%–100% were able to interact adequately and access all relevant data. The most important improvements of virtual disease multidisciplinary team were better quality of clinical approach/research (22.7%–31.8%), technological innovations (50.0%), and logistical setting (95.5%). 90.0% to 100% thought that virtual disease multidisciplinary team could be approved thereafter. We observed an increase in participation rate from 58.0, to 62.0%, to 64.0% (p = 0.0159) and a rise in the new cases discussed at meetings compared to the re-discussed ones from 30.1% to 37.9% to 42.3% (p < 0.0001) in the pre-covid, covid, and post-covid phases, respectively.

Virtual disease multidisciplinary team enhances participation and discussion quality without compromising patient care.

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