Clinical Nutrition and Food Services

Abstract

Nutrition and food services provide a clinical support for quality nutritional care and treatment for a patient’s overall nutritional health and recovery. In response to the crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic initial surge at SBH Health System in Spring 2020, the clinical nutrition team immediately began setting up strategic plans to cope with the unprecedented challenges and the arising logistical and staffing needs as greater demand was put on acute care hospitals worldwide. This chapter highlights those plans and describes how they were implemented during this COVID-19 crisis to ensure the continuity of quality nutrition care provision for all patients in the hospital as well as in the community. A primary challenge throughout the rapidly evolving COVID-19 crisis was rapidly expanding the capacity of the Nutrition Services Department. With proper strategic planning within the team and across the hospital departments, substantial preparations were made to overcome these difficulties and obstacles, despite the many unforeseen circumstances that often evolved unexpectedly. With great teamwork and collaboration, the clinical nutrition team realized there were actually many pathways to negate and minimize the impact of the crisis on nutrition provision allowing continuity of service through the pandemic crisis.