Angela Lago, Clinical Nutrition Manager, recently represented NHRMC at a national Clinical Nutrition Manager Symposium in Atlanta, Georgia. Her poster, "Bridging the Gap from Hospital to Home: Implementation of a Malnutrition Transitions of Care Program" won the People's Choice Award for Quality and Process Improvement.
The poster highlights a new role for Registered Dietitians at NHRMC in the transitions of care space, in which a Registered Dietitian makes home visits to patients identified as malnourished during their admission at NHRMC.
During the in home visit, Skip Allen, Clinical Outreach Dietitian, reviews the nutritional discharge plan of care to ensure patients understand how to continue on the path to healing and the role that nutrition plays in their recovery. He also identifies barriers that patients may have in meeting their nutritional goals and connects them with appropriate resources in the community, such as food banks, home-delivered meals, SNAP enrollment and other similar services. The home visits started in February 2019 with the goal of reducing 30-day readmission of malnourished patients, improving patients nutritional markers, and decreasing avoidable utilization of hospital resources.
This program has also recently been featured in multiple healthcare magazine, including Modern Healthcare.
Click here to see the poster.
Pictured: Clinical Outreach Dietitian Skip Allen, Clinical Nutrition Manager Angela Lago, and Director of Food and Nutrition Wayne Strauss.