Description

Despite increasing awareness and diagnosing of malnutrition and its effects, one in three patients continue to be malnourished with an annual cost of $156.7 billion for disease-related malnutrition in the U.S. across eight diseases. Malnutrition is now also becoming a leading cause of hospital re-admissions and increased health care costs. Thus, treatment and prevention programs are now even more imperative. The purpose of Malnutrition Awareness Week is to continue to raise awareness of malnutrition and its negative effects on individuals and health care costs. In addition, Malnutrition Awareness Week activities intend, to provide specific strategies for addressing and implementing programs and resources to combat malnutrition within the hospital and community settings. This webinar will address the feasbility of providing cost effective oral nutrition supplements (ONS) to malnourished patients in the hospital and how standardization of administration can improve patient outcomes.

Learning Objectives:

1. Identify current gaps in addressing the treatment of malnutrition during hospital admission and after discharge
2. Describe how standardization of ONS administration and documentation in EHR can improve patient outcomes in regards to malnutrition
3. List examples of potential barriers to developing ONS protocol in any institution
4. Describe feasible interventions to increase ONS consumption and compliance in the malnourished individual

Speaker(s):

• Sandra Citty, PhD, ARNP-BC, College of Nursing, University of Florida, Newberry, FL 32669
• Krishnan Sriram, MD, FCCM, FRCS(C), FACS