What type of facilities and patients can participate in nutritionDay?

Non-ICU patients

ICU patients

Skilled nursing Home Patients

Home Healthcare Patients

Non-Breast Fed Pediatric Patients

Is nutritionDay in the ICU performed on a different day than the non-ICU?

No, all units participate in nutritionDay on the same day.  Keep in mind that you only need one unit to participate.

If I didn’t participate in nutritionDay last year, can I participate this year?

Yes, we recommend annual participation thereafter to obtain annual benchmarking of your facility.

Does any data need to be collected before nutritionDay?

You may want to do the following before nutritionDay:

  • Submit a waiver to the IRB, if this required by your facility
  • Educate clinicians involved with nutritionDay
  • Perform a trial nutritionDay on one patient
  • Complete Sheet 1 for ICU and non-ICU patients
  • Receive patient consent, if this is required by your facility

Does the whole facility participate in nutritionDay?

All that is required to participate in nutritionDay is one unit, ICU or non-ICU, with a minimum of 20 patients.

 

What if I do not have 20 patients in the participating unit on nutritionDay?

We recommend you conduct nutritionDay on more than one day immediately following nutritionDay in the same unit until you have reached at least 20 patients.

Can we combine ICUs to achieve 20 patients on nutritionDay?

Since ICU Sheet 1 may vary for the other ICU, we would need to have the 2 ICUs entered separately. If you do not have 20 patients in one unit on nutritionDay, you can perform nutritionDay on subsequent days until you have adequate patient participation

Can home healthcare patients participate in nutritionDay?

Yes, the nursing home information (Protocol, forms etc.) will need to be used since home healthcare patients are long term care.  Each home healthcare facility would be consider one unit. The facility could be the corporate group or the facility.

We are reviewing our current forms and look forward to developing forms specifically for the home healthcare community.

Which clinicians can participate in nutritionDay?

Any clinician involved with patient care.  However, we recommend that the project lead at your facility be involved with the patient nutritional care as well.

nutritionDay is a great project for students and interns.  However, we recommend that students and interns do not assist with the ICU participation, due to the complexity of the patient.

How much time is needed to educate the clinicians that are assisting with nutritionDay? 

It will depend on their role and responsibility.  However, training the clinician should not take more than 30-60 minutes.  We would also recommend a trial nutritionDay on one patient prior to nutritionDay, in addition to your training.