Enhancing Multidisciplinary Team Processes in Lung Cancer Care: A Self-Assessment Toolkit and Best Practices

Multidisciplinary teams (MDTs) play a pivotal role in the comprehen­sive management of cancer. MDT meetings (MDTMs) bring together specialized experts across the entire patient care spectrum, convening regularly to discuss patient cases, select optimal diagnostic strategies, and determine the most ap­propriate treatment modalities. By fostering cross-disciplinary interaction, MDTs aim to enhance patient outcomes and elevate the collective proficiency within a health care institution, promoting knowledge dissemination and ensuring health care practitioners remain abreast of the latest clinical insights. This study’s methods comprised an extensive review of existing literature coupled with in­terviews involving lung cancer MDTs from 24 medical centers across Europe and Canada. The research focused on elucidating dynamics and variations observed among lung cancer MDTs, outlining an optimal MDT process, identifying varianc­es in the study sample, and introducing a comprehensive self-assessment tool­kit for continuous evaluation and improvement. The report discusses how these results should be used to self-optimize hospital MDTs, promote standardization, and encourage increased cross-hospital best practices sharing. With this, MDTs will be better positioned to deliver on the key goal of improved patient outcomes while promoting equality of access to health care.