Granting Order-Writing Privileges to Registered Dietitian Nutritionists Can Decrease Costs in Acute Care Hospitals

      Clinical Nutrition Mangers are responsible for creating and maintaining budgets. A way to help cut costs in the hospital setting is to allow Registered Dietitian Nutritionist's (RDN) to write their own nutrition-related orders. This would save money in nutrition supplements and parenteral nutrition. A study showed that reducing unnecessary parenteral nutrition orders could potentially save $45,641 on average. 
       Utilizing RDNs nutritional knowledge can also impact the readmissions to hospitals, lengths of stay, and decrease mortality rates. Having an RDN write orders for malnutrition patients can help cut the cost. A recent study showed that patients who received care from RDNs while in the hospital had a mean total of 1.08 day stay less in the hospital compared to the other group who did not receive the same care. 
        Other studies have shown that patients who received nutritional treatment from a RDN while in the hospital and post hospital care have a 3.8% lower mortality rate compared to the 11.6% mortality rate of the other group who did not receive nutritional care from an RDN. This study shows that RDNs are essential to improve nutrition related care. Although this study does not show a direct link of cutting costs in the hospital setting it does prove that RDNs can have more positive impact in the health care field. 
-KM


Phillips, W., & Doley, J. (2016). Granting Order-Writing Privileges to Registered Dietitian Nutritionists Can Decrease Costs in Acute Care Hospitals. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
       

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Are All Sugars Created Equal?

Milk Mythbusters