Abstract
Materials and methods: 1) A total of 71 patients were provided nutritional support by the nutrition support team of Teikyo University Chiba Medical Center. We classified the patients into four groups according to the nutritional triage category and investigated the improvement rate following the nutritional triage. The nutrition triage categories were defined as follows: “ red” consisted of patients in an extremely poor nutritional state who required immediate treatment, “yellow” consisted of patients between the categories of “red” and “green”, “green” consisted of patients who were expected to improve with their current nutritional therapy, and “ blue” consisted of patients who required palliative care. 2）We interviewed 15 members of the nutritional support team regarding their understanding of the nutritional condition before and after the nutritional triage. Results: 1) There were 21 patients in the “red” group, 31 patients in the “yellow” group, 10 patients in the “green” group and nine patients in the “blue” group. The improvement rates according to the nutritional triage into the “red,” “yellow,” “green” and “blue” groups were 71.4%, 83.9%, 100% and 22.2%, respectively. The mean improvement rate was 74.6%. 2) When asked on the questionnaire survey about their understanding of the changes in the nutritional condition before and after the nutritional triage, the proportions of team members answering “ getting better” and “no changes” were 80% and 20%, respectively.
