Public Notice of Intent

Malnutrition Safety Intervention Standard

Designation Number: HSO 5066 

Standards notification on a: New Development

Type of Standard: Intervention

Status: Open for comment (15 days)

Responsible Technical Committee: TC010 – Acute and Surgical Care Services

Project Need: Malnutrition in hospitals is a prevalent issue that is often not detected, diagnosed, or treated in patients and its associated costs are estimated to be $2 billion/year. There is a need to standardize practices around malnutrition in Canadian hospitals, as it is a cost and patient safety issue.

As a proposed National Standard of Canada, clients will be ensured that the standard has gone through a rigorous development process and will be founded on current best practice. The standard will be the result of comprehensive consultation with healthcare professionals, decision makers, and patients/families.

There is potential for this standard to be used by global stakeholders such as the American Society of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition, British Association of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition, European Society of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition, etc.

Scope: HSO has convened a standards Technical Committee and working group to develop a new Malnutrition Safety Intervention Standard.
This Malnutrition Safety Intervention Standard will provide guidance based on best evidence, to address malnutrition in hospitalized patients.

The standard will pertain to adult and pediatric populations. It will provide guidance for health care professionals on how to best identify patients at risk of malnutrition on admission to hospital. The standard will also identify the characteristics of best practices on how to diagnose, prevent and treat malnutrition, including after discharge into the community.

This standard is intended for use by acute care organizations including administrators, health care professionals, patient/family advocates and national/international nutritional advocates.

 Applicability: Global

Proposed Timeline: May 2019-August 2020

Posted on: July 17, 2019

Contact Information: Organizations interested to support the development of this standard or wanting to be consulted as a stakeholder during the development process may contact us at publications@healthstandards.org. Individuals, including patients, providers, health leaders and the members of the public are encouraged to provide comments through stakeholder organizations.

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