Hospitals in the United States spend billions of dollars each year treating diet-related chronic illness. By improving nutritional intervention during admissions, hospitals have an opportunity, and increasingly, an obligation, to improve the long-term nutritional status of patients and prevent readmissions. Through the Healthier Hospitals program, hospitals can leverage their collective purchasing power to increase the availability of local, sustainable meat and produce. Why is this important? With 80% of all the antibiotics being consumed in the United States being fed to livestock, American are consuming antibiotics in amounts that are affecting public health. Local meat producers tend to be smaller and less likely to treat livestock with drugs. Meat that is free of antibiotics supports community immunity by allowing our bodies to naturally fight disease, and by maintaining the efficacy of prescribed antibiotics. Locally produced fruits and vegetables do not have to travel as far as imported produce, so it can be picked at the ideal ripeness or maturity for optimum nutritive value.
According to the National Institutes of Health, as many as 40% of patients admitted to the hospital are suffering from malnutrition or some form of nutritive deficiency. Vitamin and mineral deficiencies leave us unable to sufficiently heal, resulting in multiple readmissions and poor patient outcomes. Hospitals can provide essential patient education and access to healthier choices through their patient meal programs. By eliminating fried foods from patient menus and offering more flexible options that include fresh fruits and vegetables, hospitals can treat malnutrition among admissions and in the community.
For hospitals adopting better nutritional standards in their food service programs, there are easy-to-implement software applications that enable diet office and clinical staff to tailor meals to individual patients’ needs while honoring taste preferences and offering healthier alternatives.
Vision Software is a leading provider of comprehensive software suites that help food and nutrition leaders make a difference in the lives of the patients in their care through excellence in food service informatics, like our Nutritional Risk Screening Software. Nutritional Risk Screening Software lets clinical staff compare patient screening data with pre-established criteria and generate interventions for malnourished and at-risk patients. Timely, automated nutrition screening helps to ensure effective allocation of clinical staff by highlighting patients who are at the greatest risk and supports proactive nutrition care interventions that can reduce length-of-stay. With Vision Software Nutrient Analysis Software, you can view patient selections on the monitor after meal service and input the amount of each item consumed for calorie counts and detailed nutrient intake analysis.
Let Vision Software show you how our web-based software solutions can help you implement better nutritional standards, serve safer, fresher, more nutritious meals while reducing waste and food-related costs. Call 629.777.8989 or fill out the form in the sidebar to schedule your free demo today.