The impact of multidisciplinary nutritional team involvement on nutritional care and outcomes in a medical intensive care unit

Abstract

The aim of this study was to evaluate nutritional care and outcomes in a medical intensive care unit (ICU) following multidisciplinary nutritional team (MNT) involvement. The authors retrospectively reviewed the data of all patients admitted to a medical ICU from April to October 2013 (pre-MNT period) and from April to October 2014 (post-MNT period). In total, 140 patients were included and allocated to the pre-MNT group (n = 70) or the post-MNT group (n = 70). The post-MNT group was more likely to use enteral nutrition (61.4 vs 37.1%, P = 0.002). In terms of total calories and protein provided, the number of nutritional goal-achieved days during stays in ICU was significantly greater in the post-MNT group than in the pre-MNT group (63.7% vs 47.6%, Po0.05 and 44.3% vs 29.9%, respectively, Po0.05). The MNT activities resulted in significant improvements in terms of nutritional provision and adequacy in a medical ICU.