Cookeville Regional adjusting its patient meal plans and cafeteria offerings to align with new federal dietary standards released by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Clinical Registered Dietitian Jennie Littrell said the hospital must follow specific federal guidelines to meet individual patient nutrition needs while maintaining qualified dietitian oversight. The federal government said it will withhold federal funding for hospitals and nursing homes that serve sugary drinks, nutrition shakes or meals that do not meet dietary guidelines.
“A lot of patients may not have a very good appetite at all, and if you’re not eating you can’t heal,” Littrell said. “And that’s kind of the basis of the nutrition program within a hospital is making sure that we’re providing foods that can help the patient get better.”
Littrell said the facility is required to maintain current therapeutic diet manuals that address various disease states such as diabetes, heart disease, and dialysis requirements.
Littrell said the hospital is working with food suppliers to identify new tray items and cafeteria options that reduce added sugars and processed items. Littrell said certain items like Jello and fruit juices remain appropriate for patients recovering from gastric surgery or those on clear liquid diets.
“We are going to try to work on reducing some of the added sugars to our patient diets, but it’s not something that can be completely eliminated over time,” Littrell said. “It’s just something that we’ll continue to have to modify and work toward improving and reducing the amount of processed items on our menu, but I don’t think that we’ll ever be able to get rid of everything.”
Littrell said supplemental beverages and protein shakes are used for patients with poor appetites or specific recovery needs like bone fractures requiring extra calcium and vitamin D.
“We have patients of all different chronic disease states that require different dietary recommendations and allotments, so we have to keep lots of variety on our menu to make sure that we’re meeting their needs,” Littrell said. “So a one-size-fits-all solution’s really not a possibility.”
Littrell said federal dietary guidelines have existed for approximately 45 years and undergo updates every five years to reflect current nutritional science. Littrell said the hospital continuously goes through performance improvement processes to ensure dietary services promote positive outcomes for the community.
“Well, since the guidelines have just recently come out in the past couple of months, we’re working continuously to try to update our menu and we’re going to continue to make those updates and reconsider different items and options and ways that can help to, you know, meet the new guidelines,” Littrell said. “It’s just a constantly evolving process.”
Littrell said the hospital does not plan to eliminate any specific food items completely to ensure variety remains available for special patient requests or individual situations.