I used to practice as a nurse in a tertiary government hospital and I have seen and encountered different cases of health conditions specially on adults. During my practice, I observed that nutrition is the least concerned area for some patients. Patient’s significant others are not knowledgeable themselves to what should they feed their patient and this sometimes lead their patient to malnutrition.
Remember, every person has a caloric requirement in orther to nourish their body properly and nourishment has a very significant role in every patient’s recuperation process.
Today, 1 of 3 people are malnourished when they enter the hospital, and even become more malnourished when discharged. These patients are at high risk for poor prognosis like prolonged length of hospital stay, increased complication/readmission rates which also increases health care costs and even mortality.
To address malnutrition, a new health economics outcomes study was conducted by leading health economists and supported by Abbott, found that oral nutritional supplements provided to patients during hospitalization are associated with significant reductions in length of stay and hospitalization cost. Additionally, the 30-day readmission risk was significantly reduced for patients with at least one known subsequent readmission.
Published in the American Journal of Managed Care, (Feb 2013) the study provides insights into the economic benefits of prescribing oral nutritional supplements to adult patients in the hospital setting.
The retrospective analysis utilized information from more than one million adult inpatient cases found in the 2000-2010 Premier Research Database maintained by the Premier healthcare alliance —representing a total of 44 million hospital episodes from across the United States or approximately 20 percent of all inpatient admissions in the U.S.
Benefits associated with patients provided oral nutrition supplements
during hospitalization included 21% or 2.3 days reduction in length of stay and 21.6% or $4,734, reduction in patient hospitalization cost.
Additionally, there was a 6.7% reduction in the probability of a 30-day readmission in patients who had at least one known subsequent readmission and were provided oral nutrition supplements during the previous hospitalization.
?Impaired nutritional status, especially in patients recovering from serious illnesses or surgery, can result in longer hospital stays; an increase in complication rates, higher readmission rates, and associated health care costs, ? says Dr. Marianna Sioson, president of the Philippine Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition. ?Research shows that using oral nutritional supplements can help reduce their length of stay and associated hospital costs. This is indeed good news for the 4 out of 10 hospitalized Filipino patients who are nutritionally at-risk since most of them shoulder their hospital expenses out of their own pockets.”
In the study, investigators were able to determine differences in length of stay and costs by comparing hospital stays where oral nutritional supplements were prescribed to stays of similar conditions where oral nutritional supplements weren’t prescribed.
?In an increasingly cost-pressured environment, health economics assessments can more comprehensively determine a therapy’s true value. Our results point to the tangible benefits of inpatient oral nutritional supplements on health outcomes and cost of care, factors that impact a hospital’s bottom line,” said study co-author, Darius Lakdawalla PhD, Quintiles Chair in Pharmaceutical Development and Regulatory Innovation, USC School of Pharmacy, and Sol Price School of Public Policy, and Director of Research, Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics, University of Southern California
?Because oral nutrition supplements are formulated to provide advanced nutrition and calories for compromised patients and are relatively inexpensive to provide, the sizeable savings they generate make supplementation a cost-effective therapy,? said study co-author, Tomas Philipson PhD, Daniel Levin Chair of Public Policy at the University of Chicago.
About the Study
The ?Impact of Oral Nutritional Supplementation on Hospital Outcomes”study is a retrospective data analysis on the effect of oral nutritional supplements on hospital economic outcomes. The study compared hospital stays where oral nutritional supplements were provided with similar hospital stays that did not provide oral nutritional supplements. The difference between length of hospital stay and cost of treatment (including supplies, labor, depreciation of equipment, etc.) were measured.
The probability of 30-day hospital readmission also was calculated.
The retrospective analysis utilized information from more than one million adult inpatient cases found in the Premier ResearchDatabase from 2000 – 2010, maintained by the Premier healthcare alliance – representing a total of 44 million hospital episodes from across the United States or approximately 20 percent of all inpatient admissions in the United States. The full sample consisted of adults 18 years and older and focused on oral feeding interventions only. The matched sample ultimately included: 1,160,088 total episodes (oral nutritional supplements episodes N= 580,044 and non-oral nutritional supplements episodes N=580,044), where propensity score matching and instrumental variables were used to address potential bias due to non-random selection.
Abbott Nutrition understand the need in managing malnutrition, that is why for more than 85 years, Abbott Nutrition has been developing and marketing science-based nutritional products to support the growth, health and wellness of people of all ages. For adults, Abbott Nutrition formulated Ensure brand, a complete and balanced oral nutritional supplements for adults which can help in solving the problems of malnutrition.
Thank you!!!
“I received a free sample of Abbott Ensure Gold from Abbott Nutrition but the opinions here are my own”
For more information about Abbott Nutrition, you may visit www.abbott.com of follow them on Twitter @AbbottNews
