Date
of Last Review 2/15/11
SME: Director of Admissions
The purpose of the nutritional assessment is to allow the physicians and other
disciplines to have a simplified view of the patient's nutritional status and
understand the registered dietitian (R.D.) recommendations.
The Food and Nutrition department provides food and clinical nutrition services to the patients under the direction of a director and registered dietitian (R.D.), respectively.
A patient nutritional assessment or consultation is triggered through the nursing assessment and/or physician order. The assessment or consultation includes, but is not limited to, the following:
 | Diagnoses |
| Patient weight |
| Diet order |
| Recommendations |
| Plan |
As part of a nutritional assessment, the R.D., in conjunction with the treatment team, determines appropriateness and need for counseling and education.
Examples of conditions of appropriateness:
| Modified Diet Order |
| Patient and R.D. preference for weight loss or weight maintenance |
| Medical conditions that requires nutrition advice |
| Nutrient/drug interactions that are completed within 72 hours of the pharmacy notification |
The dietitian is available for consultation and assessment Monday-Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The dietitian is on-call for emergency consultation and assessment and can be paged through the operator or dietary when there is a physician order for an emergency nutritional consult.
Examples of emergencies:
| A patient with no intake for 24-48 hours |
|
|
This table describes the process of screening and assessing a patient for possible nutritional risks:
Stage |
Description | ||||||||||
1 |
Upon admission, a registered nurse screens each patient to identify who is at nutritional risk using the screening criteria that the R.D. has developed. | ||||||||||
2 |
Does the patient have possible nutritional risks? If yes,
If no, then a Nutrition Consult is not needed. | ||||||||||
3 |
The R.D. provides a nutritional assessment of the patient within 72 hours of notification during weekdays. | ||||||||||
4 |
The R.D. documents the nutrition assessment in the assessment section. | ||||||||||
5 |
After the initial nutrition screening, the health care team can notify the R.D. as needed. Example: Nutrition related labs or any new nutritional-related information not revealed during the initial screen | ||||||||||
6 |
The dietitian's assessment is placed in the onlines nutritional supplement |
The RD reassesses patients in accordance with the patient's level of nutritional risk within the following time frames or as needed:
| Moderate risk within 5-7 days |
| High risk within 3 days |
The RD documents the follow-up in the progress notes and reviews the patient's progress toward nutrition-related goals. The RD reassigns and follows-up the nutrition risk levels as appropriate until discharge.
Patients receive nutritional adequate, semi-selective meals three times a day. Snacks are provided between meals three times a day.
The Nutrition and Food Services department provides special diets and accommodates patient's special needs.
Example of special need: Religious, allergies, and ethnic
Example of special diets: Low fat, low sodium and diabetic or combination
Staff and patients can contact the following for information regarding nutrition and food services/assessment:
| Director, Food and Nutrition |
| Clinical Dietitian, Food and Services |
The Joint Commission: Provision of Care, Treatment, and Services
If you have questions regarding the content of this site please contact the Policy and Procedure Committee. If you experience any technical problems please contact the MIS Department.
