How Does Working With A Multidisciplinary Team Of Specialists Help In The Diagnosis Of Vascular Anomalies?

Vascular anomalies are often medically complex, requiring input and treatment by a number of specialists. A multidisciplinary team approach will allow your care to be coordinated among doctors of many specialties.

Patients with vascular anomalies often have a number of medical issues that are interrelated. Because members of your treatment team have different areas of expertise, they are able to approach your care comprehensively.

They communicate regularly with the other members of the team as well as the primary care provider. Comprehensive treatment by providers who are familiar with vascular anomalies can also be more cost effective, and some insurance companies are recognizing this.

In some institutions, the multidisciplinary team sees patients together in one location. In other medical centers, appointments are made with various specialists sequentially, and the physicians discuss the patients in a “virtual” conference in which they are not all in the same room at the same time. In many centers, patients are also discussed at a group meeting in the absence of the patient, and radiologic tests, photographs, and pathology studies are reviewed by the team, who subsequently recommends a course of treatment.

Generally, one physician on the team will be primarily responsible for communicating with the family and following up with the patient. In some hospitals, the dermatologist may be the primary physician; in others, the surgeon or other medical specialist may be.