ABSTRACT
A prospectively studied series of 1072 patients who received specialized nutritional support are presented to evaluate the patterns of such care in a large nonuniversity teaching center. Age, service, materials used, routes of administration, complications, assessment parameters, duration of treatment, diagnoses, and survival statistics are presented. Such patterns are considered to be of importance to medical scientists, basic researchers, hospital administrators, governmental agencies, and members of the health care insurance industry.
Subject(s)
Enteral Nutrition , Nutritional Physiological Phenomena , Parenteral Nutrition , Adult , Aged , Body Weight , Combined Modality Therapy , Enteral Nutrition/adverse effects , Enteral Nutrition/methods , Evaluation Studies as Topic , Female , Humans , Leukocyte Count , Lymphocytes/cytology , Male , Middle Aged , Parenteral Nutrition/adverse effects , Parenteral Nutrition/methods , Prognosis , Prospective Studies , Serum Albumin/analysisABSTRACT
A prospective study analyzing the complications in 307 patients who had specialized nutrition support administered by their private practitioners was performed and compared to other series in which a nutrition support service exclusively provided such care of patients. The mechanical complication rate of 4.6%, septic complication rate of 2.9%, and metabolic complication rate of 4.2% compared favorably with the reported literature. A new category of complications, the judgmental complication, is described and was 12.7% in the reported series. The Saint Barnabas Medical Center experience suggests that individual practitioners can satisfactorily administer intravenous specialized nutrition support if in fact an involved nutrition support service functions administratively and supportively in the background.
