Carlota Basualdo-Hammond is a Registered Dietitian with almost 25 years in leading dietetic practice. She completed a Master of Science in Nutrition and Metabolism (1996) and Master of Public Health (2003) in Health Management and Policy. Since 2011, she has been the Executive Director, Nutrition Services, Provincial Strategy Standards of Practice, Alberta Health Services. Her area is responsible for guidelines, education resources, professional education, provincial initiatives, and research/evaluation. She applies evidence informed strategies and champions change to improve patient’s nutritional outcomes across the continuum of care. She works collaboratively within Nutrition and Food Services to address malnutrition and improve patient outcomes. She is also currently the co-chair of the Canadian Malnutrition Task Force Advisory Committee.
This “short snapper” talk will focus on addressing malnutrition at a systems level to improve patient and systems outcomes. The importance of leveraging existing organizational priorities, and embedding optimal nutrition care into care pathways and documentation will be illustrated with examples. This includes advocating to embed documentation of nutrition care practices into Electronic Medical Records (EMR) for standard workflows (e.g. screening, referral, Subjective Global Assessment, documentation of weight/height, monitoring food intake, and delivery of nutrition support). Additionally, opportunities to leverage the use of EMRs to capture data, create standard reports and assess degree of implementation of nutrition care best practices/ standards and opportunities for continuous improvement will be shared. Lastly, the importance of multidisciplinary approaches, patient involvement, and leadership will be highlighted.