engleski

Implementation of informatization in organizing hospital meals in the Republic of Croatia

Ensuring optimal care development of patients’ nutrition and nutritional therapy in healthcare facilities is achieved by implementing the Croatian Ministry of Health’s decision on the “Standard for the Patient Nutrition”. Its features are the basis for the informatization of hospital meals and include 50 different diets defined according to the needs of particular patient groups. New standards provide unambiguous labeling, number and type of diets, diet’s uniform application with certain diseases, consistent nutrition quality, systematic development and control of hospital meals. Each diet has an ordinal number, name, energy value (kJ/kcal), proportion of macronutrients, number of daily meals, its purpose and characteristics. The aim of this paper is to give an overview of the Standard’s implementation through the IT system. This system connects all hospital departments with the Dietetics and Nutrition Department. The designed software based on user requirements consists of the application software implemented using the program module “Nutrition”. Its menu contains: basic data, applications, menus, worksheets, requisitions, meals calculation, norms, planning, analysis, the core, and user settings. The overview refers specifically to the information oriented connections of the Departments of Gynaecology and Obstetrics and of Dietetics and Nutrition, where according to the Standard with regard to frequency, the diets should be prepared as follows: the diet for women who are pregnant, childbearing and breastfeeding ; the diet without limitations ; the diet for patients with diabetes ; and three diets of the hospital - postoperative, tea and zero. Nutritionists and dietitians in health care and the development of IT system have given a significant contribution to the system’s realization. Its advantage is reflected in continuous monitoring ; instant recognition of deviations from the set parameters ; equipment failures establishment ; facilitated documentation of parameters ; and creation of a database used for trend analysis and implementation of preventive actions, which affects the human resources optimization.

Hospital meals ; Informatization ; Standard for the Patient Nutrition

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