Background

The Sydney West Translational Cancer Research Centre is a five year program grant funded by the Cancer Institute NSW aimed at improving patient outcomes through translational research. Multidisciplinary teams (MDTs) are key to the delivery of cancer care in Australia. There is a lack of knowledge and research into how these MDT teams can best be engaged in translational research from basic science through to implementation science and quality improvement.

Methods

The study used mixed methods to identify organizational systems and structures that support MDTs to engage in translational research and quality improvement. Structured observations were made of 43 MDT meetings across 8 tumour streams to determine how these teams engaged with translational research. 18  interviews were conducted with MDT leaders and champions regarding how teams interact with and generate research and implementation initiatives. From observations and interviews a series of interventions was described to support the engagement of MDTs in translational research. These interventions were presented at 2 focus groups at which a prioritization process was applied to determine which interventions were most acceptable and likely to have impact.

Results

A small number of MDT teams were active in basic research and clinical trials but few teams, if any, engaged with implementation science or quality improvement. Four interventions were prioritized as likely to have a significant impact on a team’s ability to engage across the spectrum of translational research and quality improvement. These included: access to high quality data around individual and team performance; research active team leaders; having experts such as basic scientists or implementation scientists embedded into teams on a regular basis; and having dedicated research or quality improvement-focused meetings.

Conclusions

This is the first project to systematically investigate and describe a series of interventions that can be applied to increase the engagement of MDTs in translational research. The current lack of engagement represents a considerable missed opportunity. The authors are currently piloting the interventions within upper GI tumour streams.