Improving the standard of nutrition care in hospital: Mealtime barriers reduced with implementation of the Integrated Nutrition Pathway for Acute Care

Background: Poor food intake is common in hospital patients and is associated with adverse patient and healthcare outcomes; diverse mealtime barriers to intake often undermine clinical nutrition care. Aim: This study determines whether implementation of locally adaptable nutrition care activities as part of uptake of the Integrated Nutrition Pathway for Acute Care (INPAC) reduced mealtime barriers and improved other patient outcomes (e.g. length of stay; LOS) when considering other covariates. Methods: 1250 medical patients from 5 Canadian hospitals were recruited for this before-after time series design. Mealtime barriers were tallied with the Mealtime Audit Tool after a meal, while proportion of the meal consumed was assessed with the My Meal Intake Tool. Implementation of new standard care activities occurred over 12 months and three periods (pre-, early, and late) of implementation were compared. Regression analyses determined the effect of time period while adjusting for key covariates. Results: Mealtime barriers were reduced over time periods (Period 1 = 2.5 S.D. 2.1; Period 3 = 1.8 S.D. 1.7) and site differences were noted. This decrease was statistically significant in regression analyses (-0.28 per time period; 95% CI -0.44, -0.11). Within and across site changes were also observed over time in meal intake and LOS; however, after adjusting for covariates, time period of implementation was not significantly associated with these outcomes. Discussion: Mealtime barriers can be reduced and sustained by implementing improved standard care procedures for patients. The More-2-Eat study provides an example of how to implement changes in practice to support the prevention and treatment of malnutrition. (C) 2018 European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.