Nutrition in Healthcare Leadership Team

Poor eating habits are a serious and costly problem. In 2009, the U.S. spent approximately $147 billion on treatment of/health issues stemming from obesity, overweight, and physical inactivity – most of which are preventable. Many of our neighborhoods are inundated with unhealthy, inexpensive foods and beverages. In order to ensure everyone has access to healthful, affordable foods, significant changes are needed to our current food system.

Hospitals recognize the major role they can play in sparking this transformation. As recognized authorities on health and wellness, hospital systems across San Diego County are coming together to model and promote healthy and sustainable food in their cafeterias, patient meals, and the community. The Nutrition in Healthcare Leadership Team (NHLT) was launched as a joint effort between Healthy Works^SM, a countywide initiative making systems and environmental changes promoting wellness and addressing the nationwide obesity epidemic, and the Healthcare Domain. The Healthcare Domain continues to support this work as an active domain work plan.

In April 2011, the COI’s Healthcare Domain in conjunction with Healthy Works^SM launched the Nutrition in Healthcare Leadership Team (NHLT), a consortium of healthcare food service, sustainability, and wellness professionals. In September 2012, the NHLT completed a multi-year strategic plan that outlines its vision, mission, and goals, which include:

Resources

Topics of discussion included:

• the role of food in health promotion and preventive medicine
• local and national examples of hospitals leading the way in advancing healthy and sustainable food and beverage practices
• how hospitals can leverage their collective buying power and expertise to help shape a healthy and sustainable food system

NHLT Fact Sheets

• Healthy Beverages in Healthcare
• Healthy Vending in Healthcare
• Local Produce in Healthcare
• Less Meat, Better Meat

These documents include the NHLT’s definitions and evidence-based rationale for each guideline.
We encourage hospitals to use these to educate stakeholders on the importance of these four subjects: healthy beverages, healthy vending, local produce, and less meat, better meat.

NHLT Annotated Bibliographies

• Flavored Milk
• Non Nutritive Artificial Sweeteners

The NHLT examined a broad range of scientific opinions before categorizing flavored milk and non-nutritive artificial sweeteners (NNS) in its Healthy Beverages in Healthcare document. Here we present that range in the form of 2 annotated bibliographies.

Balanced Menus: a Pilot Evaluation of Implementation in Four San Francisco Bay Area Hospitals
Balanced Menus is a voluntary program that seeks to improve nutrition and benefit the environment by reducing meat purchasing among participating hospitals by 20 percent within 12 months while also shifting towards serving more sustainable produced meat. This report describes the results of a pilot evaluation of Balanced Menus program implementation in four San Fransisco Bay Area hospitals.

Emerging Local Food Purchasing Initiatives in Northern California Hospitals
This report from the Agricultural Sustainability Institute through UC Davis presents a cross-section of current farm-to-hospital initiatives in the region, in order t demostrate what has been accomplished in Northern california hospitals and how. The report is intended to help hospital foodservice providers plan and develop their own local food sourcing practices.

Food Matters: Hospitals Serving Up a Menu of Change
Health care facilities across the continent are recognizing that the food system – how our food is produced and distributed – is misaligned with dietary guidelines, and is largely reliant on methods of production and distribution that harm public and environmental health. Hospitals are responding by adopting healthy food purchasing policies, health care organizations are demonstrating a commitment to “first, do no harm” and treating food and its production and distribution as preventive medicine that protects the health of patients, staff, and communities.

Food Matters: Clinicians Address an Industrialized Food System Gone Awry
Healthcare clinicians play a vital role in educating their patients, community and institutions. Clinicians are recognized as trusted experts on health-related issues, not only in the clinic, but in society as well. Well-informed and prepared clinicians can dramatically influence and educate others about the importance of healthy and ecologically sustainable food systems. Clinicians can play a vital role in supporting practices and policies in medical schools, hospitals, and other health care facilities that support and model a healthy and ecologically sustainable food system.

Food Matters: In the Womb and Beyond
Healthy eating habits begin in the womb and continue through early childhood. Healthcare clinicians play a vital role in educating their patients, community and institutions about the importance of healthy and ecologically sustainable food.

Healthier Hospitals Agenda
The Healthier Hospitals Initiative, a coalition of leading health systems and organizations committed to improving sustainability and safety across the health care sector, has created the Healthier Hospitals Agenda to chart a path to a healthier, more sustainable and more cost-effective health care system.

Encouraging Healthier Choices in Hospitals
This 2014 report from Health Care Without Harm and the Center for Science in the Public Interest examines SSB-reduction strategies in 11 hospitals around the nation, including San Diego County’s Rady’s Children’s Hospital, which has significantly decreased SSB consumption even while it has boosted beverage sales revenue.

Food Matters Training (11/9/2013) Presentations

• Christine Wood: Call to Action-Advocacy
• Kendra Klein: Healthy Food in Healthcare-Moving from Ideals to Action
• Melanie Fiorella: Food Matters-Impacts of the Industrialized Food System on Maternal and Child Health
• Ted Schettler: Food Matters-A Clinical & Public Health Framework for Food-Related Health
• Joe Libertucci: NHLT Presentation
• Palomar Medical Center Presentation
• Sharp HealthCare Presentation
• Scripps Hospital System Presentation
• Kindred Hospital Presentation
• Rotating Slides

Food Matters is a clinical education and advocacy training developed by the Health Care Without Harm Healthy Food in Health Care Program for physicians, nurses, dietitians, and other maternal/child healthcare professionals.  The training reviews the obesity and Western disease epidemic and the current science around exposures to environmental toxicants within our food system and the impacts of these exposures on pediatric, reproductive, and ecological health. The Food Matters program is a comprehensive package to encourage hospitals and healthcare professionals to become leaders and advocates for a food system that promotes public and environmental health.

This training was developed by the Nutrition in Healthcare Leadership Team, a subcommittee of the San Diego County Childhood Obesity Initiative, a program facilitated by Community Health Improvement Partners, Health Care Without Harm, San Francisco Bay Area Physicians for Social Responsibility, and University of California San Francisco’s Program on Reproductive Health and Environment. This training was jointly sponsored by Community Health Improvement Partners and PAC/LAC (Perinatal Advisory Council: Leadership, Advocacy, and Consultation).

Made possible by funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, through the County of San Diego.