Australia's leading breast cancer resource for health professionals
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Treatment and supportive care for people with cancer involves a number of different medical and allied health care professionals. Evidence indicates that a team approach to cancer care, in which health care professionals together consider all treatment options and develop an individual treatment plan for each patient, can reduce mortality and improve quality of life for the patient. Such an integrated approach to health care is known as multidisciplinary care (MDC). MDC is becoming an increasingly important component of national and State/Territory cancer frameworks. NBOCC is committed to improving the uptake of MDC for cancer, using lessons learned from a number of key national projects, including a National Demonstration Project in breast cancer coordinated by NBCC. Multidisciplinary care – what are the medicolegal implications?Multidisciplinary care has been shown to improve care and outcomes for patients with cancer and is incorporated into national and state/territory clinical practice guidelines, frameworks and plans across Australia. Work conducted by NBOCC and others has highlighted a number of issues relating to the medicolegal implications of a team approach to cancer care that could benefit from clarification. The introduction of new Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) item numbers for specialists participating in multidisciplinary treatment planning meetings in November 2006 has added further impetus for the need for clarification in this area. To this end, the NBCC* held a workshop of clinical, legal and ethical experts in March 2007 with the aim of developing consensus advice about the potential medicolegal implications of a multidisciplinary approach to cancer care.
MBS item for multidisciplinary cancer careInformation for health professionals about the use of MBS items 871 and 872, which provide rebates for participation in multidisciplinary treatment planning meetings for cancer patients.
Making multidisciplinary cancer care a reality: Report and recommendationsThe National Breast Cancer Centre (NBCC) has published a report highlighting outcomes and recommendations from its 2005 national forum series
Making multidisciplinary cancer care a reality. The report identifies innovative solutions to some of the common barriers to the implementation
of multidisciplinary cancer care (MDC) and provides both national recommendations and local implementation strategies to improve the uptake of MDC. Multidisciplinary cancer care auditBuilding on its extensive work in multidisciplinary care, NBOCC is undertaking a national audit of MDC activity in breast, gynaecological, lung, prostate and colorectal cancers. In November 2006, the Australian Government will introduce a new item through the Commonwealth Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) to support cancer specialists attending multidisciplinary care treatment planning meetings. The audit will provide a baseline snapshot of MDC activity and identify any barriers to the implementation of MDC prior to the introduction of the new MBS item. The audit will be conducted nationally through a telephone survey with nominated individuals at a random sample of hospitals across a range of health service delivery settings. NBOCC is collaborating with State and Territory groups to administer the audit and build on existing information in MDC. For more information about the audit, contact Heidi Wilcoxon on heidi.wilcoxon@nbocc.org.au. * In February 2008, National Breast Cancer Centre (NBCC) changed its name to National Breast and Ovarian Cancer Centre (NBOCC).
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