Nutrition‐Focused Quality Improvement Program Results in Significant Readmission and Length of Stay Reductions for Malnourished Surgical Patients

Background Addressing nutrition needs of inpatients results in improved health outcomes. We conducted a post hoc analysis of previously published data. The aim of this analysis was to evaluate the clinical benefits of a nutrition quality improvement program (QIP) in surgical patients when compared w...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:JPEN. Journal of parenteral and enteral nutrition 2018-08, Vol.42 (6), p.1093-1098
Main Authors: Sriram, Krishnan, Sulo, Suela, VanDerBosch, Gretchen, Kozmic, Sarah, Sokolowski, Malgorzata, Summerfelt, Wm. Thomas, Partridge, Jamie, Hegazi, Refaat, Nikolich, Sanja
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aged
Female
Humans
Inpatients - statistics & numerical data
length of stay
Length of Stay - statistics & numerical data
Male
Malnutrition - therapy
Middle Aged
nutrition support
Nutritional Status
Patient Readmission - statistics & numerical data
Postoperative Complications - prevention & control
Quality Improvement - statistics & numerical data
quality improvement program
readmissions
surgical patients
Surgical Procedures, Operative
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Summary:Background Addressing nutrition needs of inpatients results in improved health outcomes. We conducted a post hoc analysis of previously published data. The aim of this analysis was to evaluate the clinical benefits of a nutrition quality improvement program (QIP) in surgical patients when compared with medical patients. Methods Data were collected from 1269 QIP patients and 1319 historical controls. These combined 2588 patients were categorized into surgical (390, 15%) and medical (2198, 85%) patient subgroups. Results Readmission rate relative risk reductions were significantly higher among surgical patients when compared with the medical patients (46.9% vs 20.6%, P < .001). Average length of stay decreased significantly for both groups (29.0% and 29.6%, P = .8). Conclusion Malnourished hospitalized surgical and medical patients experienced improved readmission rates and length of stay. However, surgical patients saw a significantly greater reduction in the readmission rate when compared with the medical patients, thus highlighting the importance of nutrition on surgical outcomes. The ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier for this study is NCT02262429.
ISSN:0148-6071
1941-2444
DOI:10.1002/jpen.1040