Connect Nutrition Care to Meaningful Outcomes

Outcome categories answer different questions

An outcome is a result observed after care, but outcomes sit at different distances from the nutrition intervention. Direct nutrition outcomes include intake, nutrient delivery, nutrition knowledge or behavior, anthropometric change, and resolution of the nutrition diagnosis. Clinical outcomes include laboratory patterns, symptoms, wound progress, complications, and functional findings used in clinical management. Health and disease outcomes include morbidity, disease incidence or control, disability, survival, and health-related quality of life. Patient-centered outcomes reflect what matters to the person, such as symptom burden, confidence, cultural fit, treatment workload, participation in usual activities, and goal attainment. Resource-use outcomes include visits, emergency care, length of stay, readmissions, product use, staff time, and cost. Classification is less important than choosing a set that captures the causal pathway and the decision. One result may fit more than one category, so state why it is being measured.