Nutrition Management Office

Hayato Tsuchiya, Aya Omae, Hiroko Abe, Sachiko Seki, Hideki Funakoshi, Akiko Onozawa, Ayano Shimura, Hitomi Ikeda, Noriko Ichimura, Hiroko Onodera

Introduction

Nutritional counseling at the Patient Support Research and Development Center has been enriched by multi-occupational collaboration and we are able to respond promptly to sudden requests at any time.

The number of nutritional counseling sessions from April 2021 to March 2022 increased after an active response to outpatient nutritional diet guidance during the esophageal cancer perioperative period. Group nutrition dietary guidance for inpatients after colorectal cancer and EMR surgery and outpatient nutrition classes have also been well received by users.

The Nutrition Support Team (NST) had 1,366 new interventions, with a monthly average of 114 (Table 1).

The Nutrition Management Office provided 438,348 meals in total.

The number of nutritional counseling sessions was 3,559, and of group guidance sessions was 481.

Table 1. Number of NST consultations

Research activities

We conduct research on improving the nutrition and dietary environment of cancer patients aiming to disseminate information such as proposals of menu preparations for home care patients, and hints for preventing malnutrition.

Collaborative research continues to improve the precision of meal support in accordance with changes in the meal preferences of cancer patients.

Education

We accepted trainees from 8 training schools (8 schools; 10 groups) for registered dietitians and provided practical training that was performed in cooperation with universities as part of human resource development. Usually, we have training sessions for the NST specialized therapist certification for in-hospital and out-of-hospital staff, but this year they were canceled due to COVID-19 infection control. We actively participated in lectures inside and outside the hospital and conducted educational activities on cancer treatment and nutrition.

Future Prospects

In the food service, thorough hygiene control and the provision of safe meals are given top priority.

In addition, we will arrange more regional cuisine, which we have recently started offering. And more than the previous year, we will strive to provide meals with variations, such as enhancing the menu. Regarding clinical nutrition support, we will strengthen the perioperative nutrition meal guidance for elderly people, the nutrition management in the intensive care units, and the team medical care, including the meal support for chemotherapy, by going to the hospital more, and contribute to improving the QOL of the patients.