Abstract
We started the Nutrition Support Team(NST) in 2005. Since our NST service had been limited to inpatient care, we conducted this study to determine whether we could also apply our NST service to outpatient care and to evaluate the efficacy of our NST service in the outpatient setting. The team was composed of three surgeons, two registered dietitians, one pharmacist and one technologist. In the outpatient setting, we found 21 malnourished patients with recent gastrointestinal surgery in the observed period. We provided the nutrition support to them on the same day when malnutrition was diagnosed. Nutrition support included dietary counseling and oral nutritional supplements if required. The nutritional status of the patients was assessed using subjective global assessment in addition to a number of anthropometric and biochemical parameters. The level of hemoglobin and serum levels of total protein, albumin and choline esterase after the intervention were significantly better than the initial data. There was no drop out during the observed period. These results suggest that our NST service is practicable in the outpatient setting and it may improve the nutritional status and outcome of malnourished patients with recent gastrointestinal surgery.
