A study of the impact of collaborative tools on the effectiveness of clinical pathology conferences

Abstract

Multidisciplinary conferences in hospitals are becoming an everyday part of health service delivery and being recommended as a mechanism for ensuring quality patient care and management. This paper reports preliminary findings of an ethnographic study of Clinical Pathology Conferences with Respiratory teams. Educational, patient management and organizational objectives of the conference are identified. The findings so far suggest that collaborative technologies have the potential to improve the effectiveness of clinical conference activity. Time, location and missing artefacts are identified as being issues as well as the coordination of the series of events associated with patient investigative and assessment procedures. The implications of recording data and interactions at the conference are also being investigated. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2004.