Enteral nutritional support management in a university teaching hospital: team vs nonteam

Current hospital cost containment pressures have prompted a critical evaluation of whether nutritional support teams render more clinically effective and efficient patient care than nonteam management. To address this question with regard to enteral feeding, 102 consecutive hospitalized patients who required enteral nutritional support (ENS) by tube feeding during a 3 1/2-month period were prospectively studied. Fifty patients were managed by a nutritional support team; the other 52 were managed by their primary physicians. Choice of enteral formula, formula modifications, frequency of laboratory tests, and amounts of energy and protein received were recorded daily. In addition, each patient was monitored for pulmonary, mechanical, gastrointestinal, and metabolic abnormalities. Team-managed (T) and nonteam-managed (NT) patients received ENS for 632 and 398 days, respectively. The average time period for ENS was significantly longer in the team-managed patients (12.6 +/- 12.1 days vs 7.7 +/- 6.2 days, p less than 0.01). Significantly more of the team patients attained 1.2 X basal energy expenditure (BEE) (37 vs 26, p less than 0.05). Total number of abnormalities in each group was similar (T = 398, NT = 390); however, the abnormalities per day were significantly lower in the team group (T = 0.63 vs NT = 0.98, p less than 0.01). Mechanical (T = 0.05 vs NT = 0.11, p less than 0.01), gastrointestinal (T = 0.99 vs NT = 0.14, p less than 0.05), and metabolic (T = 0.49 vs NT = 0.72, p less than 0.01) abnormalities per day all were significantly lower in the team-managed patients.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)