JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Expert knowledge is often shared among multi-disciplinary academic teams at tumor boards (TB) across the country, but these conversations exist in silos and do not reach the wider oncology community.

Objective:

Using an oncologist-only question and answer (Q&A) website, we sought to document expert insights from TBs at National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers (NCI-CCCs) to provide educational benefit to the oncology community.

Methods:

We designed a process with NCI-CCCs to document and share discussions from TBs focused on areas of practice variation on theMednet.org, an interactive Q&A website of over 13,000 US oncologists. Faculty translated TB discussions into concise, non-case based Q&A on theMednet.com. Answers were peer-reviewed and disseminated in email newsletters to registered oncologists. Reach and engagement were measured. Following each Q&A, a survey question asked how TB Q&A impacted readers’ practice.

Results:

A total of 23 Breast, Thoracic, Gastrointestinal and Genitourinary programs from 16 NCI-CCC sites participated (Table 1). Between 12/2016 and 7/2021, faculty highlighted 368 questions from their TBs. Q&A were viewed 147,661 times by 7,381 oncologists at 3,515 institutions from all 50 states. Seventy-five percent of the Q&A were viewed every month. Of the 1,063 responses to a survey on how the Q&A affected clinicians’ practice, 646 (61%) reported that it confirmed their current practice, 163 (20%) indicated that a Q&A would change their future practice, and 214 (15%) reported learning something new.

Conclusions:

Through an online Q&A platform, academics at NCI-CCCs share knowledge outside the walls of academia with oncologists across the US. Access to up-to-date, expert knowledge can reassure clinicians’ practices, significantly impact patient care in community practices, and be a source of new knowledge and education.