Gauging Food and Nutritional Care Quality in Hospitals

Abstract

Background: Food and nutritional care quality must be assessed and scored, so as to improve health institution efficacy. This study aimed to detect and compare actions related to food and nutritional care quality in public and private hospitals. Methods: Investigation of the Hospital Food and Nutrition Service (HFNS) of 37 hospitals by means of structured interviews assessing two quality control corpora, namely nutritional care quality (NCQ) and hospital food service quality (FSQ). HFNS was also evaluated with respect to human resources per hospital bed and per produced meal. Results: Comparison between public and private institutions revealed that there was a statistically significant difference between the number of hospital beds per HFNS staff member (p = 0.02) and per dietitian (p < 0.01). The mean compliance with NCQ criteria in public and private institutions was 51.8% and 41.6%, respectively. The percentage of public and private health institutions in conformity with FSQ criteria was 42.4% and 49.1%, respectively. Most of the actions comprising each corpus, NCQ and FSQ, varied considerably between the two types of institution. NCQ was positively influenced by hospital type (general) and presence of a clinical dietitian. FSQ was affected by institution size: large and medium-sized hospitals were significantly better than small ones.

Barriers to food intake in acute care hospitals: a report of the Canadian Malnutrition Task Force

“…Social desirability bias may have influenced responses for patients who were assisted by the project coordinator for completion of the survey. Future work could also determine a minimal set of food access barriers as indicators that could be translated into mealtime audit tools to support as well as track changes in practices. The strengths of this research are the large and diverse sample, the high completion rate of the questionnaire and consideration of multiple levels of influence and not just patient characteristics on mealtime and food intake challenges.…”

“…It is common knowledge that many patients are admitted to hospital in malnourished states and that poor food intake during hospitalisation exacerbates this condition, slowing recovery and affecting patient‐related outcomes. However, food and meal services are generally undervalued in patient care and, if we are to change the outcomes associated with malnutrition in the hospital setting, we need to change the nutrition care culture, including the importance of mealtimes to the recovery of patients. One mechanism for starting the change process is by identifying areas for quality improvements based on the patient's perspective.…”

“…Despite the acknowledged importance of barriers to food intake in hospital and the availability of a quality measure for assessing these barriers and the mealtime experience, very little research focused on systematically measuring these issues and describing why they may be occurring has been conducted. Specifically, quality indicators could be developed from this questionnaire and unit level strategies could target higher risk patients who are more likely to experience these barriers to food intake. Moreover, the routine use of a measure focused on identifying barriers to food intake could help to bench mark and change practices within individual hospital units.…”

Factors associated with nutritional decline in hospitalised medical and surgical patients admitted for 7 d or more: a prospective cohort study

“…Whether this reflects the quality of hospital food or the effect of illness or polypharmacy on perceptions such as taste and smell is unclear, but considering that reduced food intake is also associated with nutritional decline, it might be advisable to pay more attention to the quality of the food service, including the type and quality of food we are serving to our patients and consider that their perceptions of food may be affected by the underlying illness and, possibly, medications. Unfortunately, food and meal service are generally undervalued in patient care ( 48 , 49 ) . In this analysis, food and the barriers to intake of hospital food are a few of the factors that are potentially amenable to change.…”

Analisis Kebijakan Outsourcing Penyelenggaraan Makan Pasien di Rumah Sakit Umum Daerah Sumedang

“…Hasil penelitian ini sesuai dengan penelitian oleh Diez-Garcia dkk. 13 yang menyatakan bahwa kapasitas petugas layanan katering dan layanan asuhan gizi memberikan peran yang sangat penting dalam pelayanan gizi di rumah sakit.…”