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The use of videoconferencing allows General Practitioners to be more closely involved in the multidisciplinary exchange of input concerning a cancer patient. What’s more, it saves the GP considerable time. This has been demonstrated by a project at the Maria Middelares hospital in Ghent, where Belgacom implemented a videoconferencing system from Tandberg.

Already back in the 1980s, the AZ Maria Middelares in Ghent was among the pioneers in the Multidisciplinair Oncologisch Consult (MOC, or multidisciplinary oncological consultation), long before the oncological treatment programs provided a legal framework for this approach. The MOC is a consultation session that takes place when a doctor diagnoses a patient with cancer. During the consultation, all of the doctors involved are able to give input regarding the best course of treatment. The primary care doctor plays a crucial role here. The primary care doctor or GP has often followed the patient closely for many years, and may have accumulated a wealth of relevant and valuable information - about aspects such as the patient’s physical, psychological and social situation - which might otherwise be difficult for the team of treating physicians to assess. “When the GP is able to act as a fully fledged member of the treatment team, it clearly enhances the quality of service for the patient,” points out Dr. Denis Wulfrank, coordinator for the oncology treatment program at the AZ Maria Middelares. The involvement of the GP is also of potential importance for the communication with the patient’s family.

MOC from the GP’s own office

In order to allow GPs to actively participate in the MOCs for their patients, without having to travel to the hospital campus in Ghent, the AZ Maria Middelares started using an application for videoconferencing. The hospital opted to set it up according to an asymmetrical plan. The conference room where the doctors gather for the MOCs is equipped with a Tandberg 3000 MXP videoconferencing system, which Belgacom installed. On the GP’s side, all that is required is a PC with a broadband Internet connection, a webcam and a headset. The GP’s computer runs the client software from Tandberg. This provides an encrypted connection with the hospital. Via the system, doctors can see and talk to one another. Also, the team can display parts of the medical file on the GP’s PC, such as letters, medical imaging or lab reports. The video traffic runs via Belgacom’s Explore-network to the Internet. “At the hospital, we have an Internet connection with a 10 Mbit capacity,” says Marc Monballieu, director of communication and IT at the AZ Maria Middelares. “Of that, 2 Mbit is made available for videoconferencing, without any impact on the Internet traffic for the hospital.”

Greater involvement

The purpose of the project is not to prevent GPs from attending MOCs at the hospital. “On the contrary,” says Dr. Donald Claeys, medical director and oncological surgeon at the AZ Maria Middelares. “This solution allows us to reach those GPs who in the past would have been unable or scarcely able to participate in an MOC.” The number of MOC-dossiers continues to grow. Each year, some one thousand consultation sessions are held at the AZ Maria Middelares. With the videoconferencing project, the AZ Maria Middelares especially wants to reach those GPs for whom participation would have been out of the question in the past. In this way, the hospital is able to improve the quality of the oncological dialogue about the cancer patient. The state mutual health insurance agency RIZIV allocated financial support to the project and it should ultimately be possible to replicate it in other hospitals, institutions and fields.

Customer profile

AZ Maria Middelares

The Algemeen Ziekenhuis Maria Middelares has campuses in Ghent and in Gentbrugge, together totaling 554 beds. The hospital employs a staff of 1,400 in addition to 150 doctors. Each year, the cases of 1,000 new cancer patients are discussed via the Multidisciplinary Oncological Consultation sessions.

Business benefits

Thanks to the greater participation of the GPs in the multidisciplinary consultation, cancer patients receive service that is more accurately targeted to their personal situation. The GP can take part in the multidisciplinary consultation without time-consuming travel to and from the hospital, and without any investment or other extra operational costs.

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