AstraZeneca and Barts Health NHS Trust have launched an 18-month collaborative working project using Deontics’ Cancer Pathways IQ technology to support the modernisation of multidisciplinary team (MDT) working within the breast cancer pathway, marking the first live deployment of the technology within an operational breast cancer MDT.
The project will evaluate how digital clinical decision support and automated data extraction can help streamline breast cancer MDT processes, reduce pressure on clinical teams and create additional capacity for patient care.
Under the collaborative working agreement between AstraZeneca and Barts Health NHS Trust, Deontics’ technology will be deployed and integrated for the first time within the breast cancer service, building on work already under way using the company’s technology within lung cancer services at Barts. Previous applications of the technology in breast cancer have taken place in a research setting.
The programme, MDT Modernisation – Cancer Pathways IQ, responds to growing pressures on cancer MDTs, where increasing case volumes and the amount of clinical information requiring review can place significant demands on specialist teams.
Deontics’ technology brings together relevant clinical information with available published evidence to support evidence-based decision-making for the patient, while preserving clinician autonomy. The pilot will also evaluate a newer data-extraction capability developed by Deontics, which can extract structured information from sources including radiology reports, pathology reports and referral letters and make that information available within Cancer Pathways IQ.
Discussing the collaboration, Dr Melissa Phillips, Consultant Medical Oncologist at Barts Health NHS Trust, said: “MDTs are fundamental to high-quality cancer care, but the demands placed on them continue to increase. We need to find ways of ensuring that valuable multidisciplinary clinical time is focused where it can have the greatest impact for patients.
“This collaboration gives us the opportunity to test a different approach within the breast cancer pathway and, importantly, to measure the results. We will be looking closely at whether it can reduce unnecessary workload and discussion, improve pathway performance and create additional capacity while continuing to support safe, high-quality clinical decision-making.”
The programme has been structured around a series of measurable service, pathway and patient-access outcomes. The project will measure the total clinical and operational capacity released each month through reductions in MDT preparation time, discussion time, administration and repeat discussions, as well as the time spent discussing each patient.
The programme will also measure improvement in performance against the 62-day cancer waiting time, the number of patients reviewed through the service and the total MDT capacity released, measured in hours per month.
Dr Ioannis Chronakis, CEO and co-founder of Deontics, said: “This collaboration is about giving specialist cancer teams better access to the information and decision support they need while reducing the administrative burden surrounding MDTs.
“Breast cancer MDT teams are managing increasingly complex pathways and significant volumes of clinical information. Cancer Pathways IQ has been designed to help clinicians identify the patients who most need multidisciplinary discussion while supporting more efficient management of the wider pathway.
“This is particularly significant for Deontics because it represents the first live deployment of our breast cancer technology within an operational MDT. Over the 18-month programme we will be able to measure its impact not only on efficiency, but on capacity, waiting times and ultimately patient access to treatment.”
Anna Arent, Head of Oncology at AstraZeneca UK, added: “Partnership is essential to improving cancer care. By bringing together AstraZeneca, Barts Health NHS Trust and Deontics, we aim to help clinical teams focus their expertise where it can make the greatest difference-releasing capacity, reducing waiting times and enabling more patients to access the right treatment sooner, as we continue to work towards eliminating cancer as a cause of death.”
