Hospital Nutrition

 

          Proper nutrition is vital to staying healthy but it’s more critical for patients recovering in the hospital.  The Advocate Health Care and Abbott completed a new study that optimized nutrition care while in the hospital and found it could help reduce 30-day readmission rates by 27% and the average hospital stay by almost two days for malnourished patients.

          One in three people across the U.S. enter the hospital malnourished, which often goes unrecognized and under-treated.  In order to help improve the care of these patients, Advocate implemented two versions of a nutrition care program, basic and enhanced, at four of its Chicagoland hospitals. The programs required care teams to conduct patient malnutrition risk screenings using a validated tool on the hospitals’ electronic medical records system and then provided the nutritional treatment and support for those that were found malnourished or at-risk.  More immediate treatment upon hospital admission and follow-up calls to confirm their continued nutrition after leaving the hospital was included.

          At four of the hospitals, researchers followed more than 1,200 adults at-risk of malnutrition during their stay, to follow the impact of the programs on the patients’ chances of hospital readmissions, as well as their lengths of hospital stays.  Compared to their previous readmission rates and lengths of stay for this type of patient, researchers found that using either of the nutrition care programs had an impact of reducing the risk of patient readmissions from 22.1% to 16.1% and shortening the risk of a patient’s length of stay from 7.2 days to 5.4 days.

          Just by implementing a simple nutrition care program at the hospitals they can dramatically accelerate their patients’ recovery times.  If this were adopted nationwide, it could have tremendous benefits for the health care system overall. Krishnan Srirm, MD, tele-intensivist at Advocate Health Care and lead author of the study said, “Advocate has been a pioneer in implementing data-driven, value-based care at our hospitals, but it’s important for all care providers to consider the effect of even modest interventions, which can significantly improve outcomes while reducing the overall cost of care.”

          This study builds on existing research that confirms nutrition can be a simple and cost-effective tool.  Even though nutrition screenings are considered standard-of-care in the hospital, not all use a validated screening tool or implement treatment right away if someone is considered at risk. Many times the patients leave the hospital and do not receive education or follow-up to ensure they are following a nutrition plan to help in their recovery. This would be extremely helpful for those patients in rural or urban areas if more hospitals would prioritize nutrition while the patient is in their care. The patient’s chance of recovering and getting back to living a healthy life would benefit greatly.

          Given the fact that there are so many elderly patients in the communities without families to care for them, they most likely drop through the cracks and have little help or resources in caring for themselves.  Don’t we all owe something to our elders for all the years of care they provided? Natural alternative medicine has long promoted good nutrition in the treatment of illnesses, including those as serious as cancer.

Dr Fredda Branyon