Here are seven takeaways:
1. Researchers from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center analyzed hospital compliance with medical guidelines for nutrition intervention and looked at the reasons behind deferring enteral nutrition treatment for critically ill patients that require feeding tubes.
2. Enteral nutrition is often delayed up to 45 hours after a patient is admitted to the ICU.
3. First author of the study and gastroenterology fellow Sultan Mahmood, MD, quantified his research in personal experience saying while he was at the ICU, he noticed most of his patients were not starting nutrition on time. He lead the study to look at the cause behind those delays.
4. Dr. Mahmood and his colleagues conducted a two-year retrospective chart review examining 523 ICU stays at the Oklahoma University Medical Center, looking for delays in enteral nutrition 24-hours after admission to medical ICUs.
5. They found 161 patients required tube feeding during the time, and nutrition consultations took place an average of 52.5 hours after admission, with average enteral feeding time starting 45.4 hours after admission. Two-thirds, or 161 of the patients experienced delays; however the cause was unclear in 65 percent of those cases.
6. The American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition recommends that tube feeding begins 24 to 48 hours after admission. However, Oklahoma researchers found that initiation of enteral nutrition varied from 12 hours to four to five days.
7. After seeing study results, Dr. Mahmood made a change in the Oklahoma University MICU, launching a smartphone app for medical residents to encourage earlier nutrition intervention.
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