Extraordinary virtual multidisciplinary team meetings – a novel forum for the coordinated care of patients with ­complex conditions within a secondary care setting

Abstract

Multidisciplinary team (MDT) meetings are increasingly regarded as best practice for the successful management of chronic disease. However, for patients with undiagnosed illnesses, multiple interacting comorbidities or other complex needs that fall outside the remit of disease-specific MDTs or the scope of expertise of individual clinicians, there is often no suitable forum at which to discuss their care to develop a coordinated plan for management. We developed and piloted a new forum for interspecialty discussion and collaboration, an extraordinary virtual MDT, to enable clinicians to arrange an urgent meeting of all involved parties in response to challenging clinical scenarios. Here, we share our experience of implementing this innovation and suggest how this novel forum for coordinated care could be further developed to improve the integration, timeliness and quality of healthcare delivery for patients with complex needs.