title: Attitudes of breast cancer professionals to conventional and telemedicine-delivered multidisciplinary breast meetings.
abstract: We surveyed the attitudes of breast cancer professionals to standard face-to-face and future telemedicine-delivered breast multidisciplinary team (MDT) meetings. Interviews, which included the Group Behaviour Inventory, were conducted face-to-face (n = 19) or by telephone (n = 26). The mean total score on the Group Behaviour Inventory was 96 (SD 19) for 33 respondents, which indicated satisfaction with standard MDT meetings, irrespective of role and base hospital. Positive attitudes to videoconferencing were more common among participants with previous experience of telemedicine (Spearman's rank correlation 0.26, P = 0.91). Common themes emerging from the interviews about telemedicine-delivered MDTs included group leadership, meeting efficiency, group interaction, group atmosphere and technical quality of communication. Most participants were satisfied with standard breast MDTs. Nurses and allied health professionals were least supportive of telemedicine.
authors.affiliation: CM-Insight, Weybridge, UK.
authors.forename: R G
authors.initials: RG
authors.lastname: Fielding
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Macnab
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Swann
authors.forename: I H
authors.initials: IH
authors.lastname: Kunkler
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Brebner
authors.forename: R J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Prescott
authors.forename: J R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Maclean
authors.forename: U
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Chetty
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Neades
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Walls
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bowman
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Dixon
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Gardner
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.forename: M J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: R J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Lee
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D001943:Breast Neoplasms; D006126:Group Processes; D006801:Humans; D008495:Medical Oncology; D012606:Scotland; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D017216:Telemedicine / Q000458:organization & administration*; D049269:Videoconferencing