The power of one: Evaluating the impact of a single multi‐disciplinary treatment visit on time to treatment

Abstract

Breast cancer treatment often requires multi‐disciplinary evaluation, which can require multiple visits, delaying time to treatment initiation (TTI). The present analysis evaluated the impact of system‐wide initiatives to reduce TTI by evaluating TTI for patients completing treatment evaluation in a single visit compared with those having multiple visits. The results demonstrated that patients who completed multi‐disciplinary evaluation in a single visit had a reduced median TTI (27 vs 32 days, P = .002), which was seen for patients undergoing initial surgery (28.0 vs 33.5 days, P = .01) as well as for those undergoing neoadjuvant systemic therapy (22.5 vs 29 days, P = .05).