Food and nutritional care quality indicators in hospital

Abstract

Hospital malnutrition and increased prevalence of hospitalized patients with chronic diseases require hospital improvements in nutritional care quality. This study describes the construction of indicators to assess the quality of hospital food and nutritional care. We obtained a data bank containing information about 37 hospitals as well as their Hospital Food and Nutrition Service (HFNS) applying a questionnaire to the HFNS coordinators of each institution. We collected data about the activities of the clinical dietitians and administrative dietitian, meal production and management, and characteristics of the hospital diet. We grouped the obtained data into two corpora of actions, designated Nutritional Care Quality (NCQ) and Food Service Quality (FSQ). Each corpora comprised four indicators. The NCQ indicators included inpatient dietary coverage actions, evaluation and monitoring of nutritional status actions, actions on integration of nutritional assistance activities within the team, and actions supporting diet therapy. The FSQ indicators comprised mediation actions with users and other hospital sectors, autonomy and management control actions, meal production and qualification actions, and staff qualification actions. Systematizing the NCQ and FSQ indicators is important to support the Food and Nutritional Care Quality in Hospitals (FNCQH).