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Life sciences · Journal article
Research Connections · September 6, 2026
Encouraging direction, but not yet definitive.
Live documentation during bariatric MDT meetings substantially increased same-day recording rates (from 8.3% to 41.9%) and reduced median documentation delay from 7 days to 1 day, with statistically significant improvements in completeness. This is a pragmatic process improvement in a single centre that demonstrates feasibility but lacks evidence of impact on clinical outcomes or generalizability.
Single-centre pre-post quality improvement audit. Patients with bariatric MDT outcomes at a district general hospital bariatric centre. No explicit eligibility criteria stated.. Intervention: Live documentation of MDT decisions during bariatric multidisciplinary team meetings directly onto electronic patient records. Compared with: Usual practice (retrospective documentation after MDT meetings). n = 1,792. Single district general hospital bariatric centre (country not specified in abstract).
Patients with no MDT outcome documented decreased from 15.2% (228/1,498) at baseline to 1.7% (5/294) post-intervention Same-day documentation among those with recorded outcomes increased from 8.3% (106/1,270) to 41.9% (121/289) Median documentation delay decreased from 7 days (IQR 5–40) to 1 day (IQR 0–4), p < 0.001
No clinical outcome measures (e.g., time to treatment initiation, patient safety events, care quality) reported.
Clinicians and MDT coordinators should recognise this as evidence that live documentation during MDT meetings is feasible and substantially improves timely access to team decisions on electronic records. However, the lack of clinical outcome data means the actual impact on patient care pathways and safety remains uncertain and requires evaluation before broad implementation.
A single-centre quality improvement project with substantial improvements in a process measure (documentation timeliness and completeness) using sound methodology, but lacking clinical outcome data and generalizability beyond one district general hospital.
As stated by the source record.
Quoted from the source exactly as published.
Clinicians and MDT coordinators should recognise this as evidence that live documentation during MDT meetings is feasible and substantially improves timely access to team decisions on electronic records. However, the lack of clinical outcome data means the actual impact on patient care pathways and safety remains uncertain and requires evaluation before broad implementation.
Graded across the dimensions that decide whether you should act, each from what the source actually supports. There is no single score, and where a dimension was not assessed it says so.
Abstract Background Bariatric multidisciplinary team (MDT) meetings are critical for the coordination of complex patient care, however, delay in documenting outcomes on electronic patient records (EPRs) can slow clinical decision making and patient management. Both the British Obesity and Metabolic Surgery Society (BOMSS) and the General Medical Council (GMC) recommend prompt documentation and sharing of MDT decisions with relevant healthcare professionals. Timely MDT documentation is recognised as important across specialties, but there is limited evidence on effective strategies to improve documentation timeliness specifically in bariatric services, where case complexity is increasing with newer therapies. This project aimed to improve the completeness and timeliness of bariatric MDT outcome documentation on the EPR by introducing live documentation during meetings. Methods We conducted a quality improvement project at a district general hospital bariatric centre. The baseline audit (January 2023–December 2024) recorded documentation practices for 1,498 patients. Following team consultation, we implemented live documentation during MDT meetings. The post-intervention audit (January–May 2025) evaluated 294 patients. We measured documentation completeness, same-day recording rates among patients who had an EPR outcome recorded, and time delays. Because documentation delay data were highly skewed, the primary comparison of delay used the Mann-Whitney U test, with median and interquartile range reported as the principal descriptive statistics. chi-square test was used for categorical variables. Absolute risk differences with 95% confidence intervals were calculated using the Wald method for two independent proportions. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS version 28. Results Before intervention, 228/1,498 patients (15.2%) had no MDT outcome documented on the EPR. Among the 1,270 patients with documentation, 106 (8.3%) had same-day entries; the median delay was 7 days (IQR 5–40). Post-intervention, only 5/294 patients (1.7%) lacked an EPR report. Among the 289 patients with documentation, 121 (41.9%) had same-day entries; the median delay fell to 1 day (IQR 0–4). The reduction in documentation delay was statistically significant (Mann-Whitney U test, p < 0.001). The proportion of patients without documentation decreased by an absolute 13.5% (95% CI − 15.9% to − 11.2%; p < 0.001). Same-day documentation among those with a recorded outcome increased by an absolute 33.6% (95% CI + 27.6% to + 39.4%; p < 0.001). Conclusion Live documentation during bariatric MDT meetings was associated with improved completeness and timeliness of EPR entries. This simple initiative may improve timely access to MDT decisions for professionals coordinating care and offers a potentially transferable approach for other specialities managing complex conditions, particularly as bariatric care evolves with new technologies and therapies.
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