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Multidisciplinary Care

What is multidisciplinary care?

Multidisciplinary care is a collaborative approach to treatment planning and ongoing care throughout the treatment pathway. Multidisciplinary care aims to ensure that members of the treatment and care team can discuss all relevant aspects of a cancer patient’s physical and psychosocial needs along with other factors impacting upon the patient’s care.

What is happening in Victoria to improve multidisciplinary care?

The aim in Victoria is to ensure a multidisciplinary team approach to prospective treatment and care planning that is aligned with best practice and evidence based care, for all cancer patients.

The three strategic directions that guide the development and implementation of initiatives for achieving multidisciplinary care in Victoria are:
• Creating and supporting effective multidisciplinary teams,
• Establishing and strengthening multidisciplinary meetings, and
• Building effective team linkage across and between ICS

Why is it important?

It is well documented and accepted that multidisciplinary care represents best practice in terms of treatment planning and care for cancer patients.

Multidisciplinary care encompasses:
• A focus on continuity of care,
• Development of pathways and protocols for treatment and care,
• Development of appropriate referral networks, including appropriate referral pathways to meet psychosocial needs,
• Development of multidisciplinary team meeting audit mechanisms, and
• Consumers/patients who consent to their case being discussed by the multidisciplinary team and who understand the process, know that they will be informed about the treatment and care recommendations and will be involved in decision-making.

An effective multidisciplinary approach can result in:
• Improved treatment planning through consideration of a full therapeutic range and thus improved outcomes,
• Improved team communication,
• Survival benefit,
• Increased recruitment into clinical trials,
• Detection of emotional needs of patients,
• Reduction in minor psychological morbidity of team members,
• Reduction in service duplication, improved coordination of services and development of clear lines of responsibility, and
• Improved sharing of incidental information and informal information sharing prior to and after meetings.

How does this model relate to the other cancer reform work?

Victoria’s model for multidisciplinary care incorporates the structures established to drive change (the Integrated Cancer Services and Local Collaborating Tumour Groups) and the models that describe the requirements for optimal delivery of care (Patient Management Frameworks) that is safe, of high quality and consistent with best practice Clinical excellence in cancer care: a model for safety and quality in Victorian cancer services - Mar 2007 (PDF File 273KB)

Multidisciplinary care is one of four identified key priority areas for reform including care coordination, supportive care and reducing unwanted variation in practice. It is recognised that the four priority areas are integrally linked to each other and that service improvements in one key priority area may impact on other key priority areas. The relationship between care coordination and multidisciplinary care is significant as the development of a multidisciplinary approach to cancer care supports and enhances the coordination of patient care across the treatment and care pathway and across health care sectors.

For further information on the statewide multidisciplinary care project, please contact Spiridoula Galetakis, Program Manager, Integrated Cancer Services on Tel (03) 9096 2131 or by email at spirdoula.galetakis@dhs.vic.gov.au

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