ICT Use and Multidisciplinary Healthcare Teams in the Age of e-Health

Icts And Multidisciplinary Healthcare Teams

Multidisciplinary care is defined as an integrated team approach to healthcare, where relevant health care professionals evaluate treatment options and jointly develop treatment plan for patients (Robertson, Li, O’Hara, & Hansen, 2010; Salerno, 2015; Scholl & Olaniran, 2013). The contribution of various individuals who exist within different locations makes the collaboration among different specialists possible and is often referred to as multidisciplinary team (MDTM) and integrated care. For example, multidisciplinary teams for cancer treatment can consist of surgeons, nutritionists, radiologists, pathologists, oncologists and social workers along with general practitioners. In other words, hospitals, physicians, and Nurses provide healthcare services either through office or home visits in collaboration with other healthcare providers including general practitioners with the aid of ICTs. These technologies allow for the transfer of recorded data back to hospital environment (Salerno, 2015). Thus, ICTs represent the tools for increasing cooperation between different health professions across different settings and institutions, which in a way help foster the active/interactive role by patients, caregivers and other entities in caregiving (Scholl & Olaniran, 2013; Stellato et al., 2015a, 2015b).