Section 5.15 · Pillar 1 · Clinical Excellence, Patient Safety & Quality of Care
Right to Nutritional Care and Medical Nutrition Therapy
Nutrition screening on admission, multidisciplinary nutrition support teams and access to medical nutrition therapy.
The issue
Recognizing that malnutrition increases hospital mortality, length of stay, and healthcare costs, every patient has the right to nutritional care.
Priority components
What good looks like in this domain, expressed as the components an institution should be able to show.
- 01Conduct nutrition screening within 24 hours of admission using validated tools
- 02Provide access to medical nutrition therapy delivered by a multidisciplinary Nutrition Support Team comprising physicians, dietitians, nurses, and clinical pharmacists
- 03Ensure availability of therapeutic diets, oral nutritional supplements, and enteral and parenteral nutrition when clinically indicated
- 04Provide counseling on food-drug and supplement-drug interactions, with malnutrition documented as a reportable clinical condition
Implementation
What this domain requires in practice: the standard, the pack, the measurement, the tools and the evidence.
Standards
No approved ASQAT standards have been published for this domain yet. The standards layer is in place so that approved statements can be released without restructuring the platform.
Measurement
Measurement specifications for this domain are being developed. Indicator definitions are published only once the numerator, denominator and data source are agreed.
Measurement frameworkResources
Implementation resources for this domain are currently in development. Approved policies, procedures, checklists and tools will be released through the resource library.
Open the libraryAwaiting approved content
Evidence in practice
No approved implementation evidence has been published for this domain yet. Case studies are published only after review of what was measured and how.