Clinical Nutrition Open Science (Dec 2023)
Evaluation of nutrition information system: A national study report
Abstract
Summary: Introduction: Today, the Hospital Information System (HIS) has become an essential part of the diagnostic and therapeutic processes of health care professionals. The Nutrition Information System (NIS) as one of the subsystems of HIS plays an important role in supporting decision-making and food policy. This study was conducted with the aim of evaluating the NIS of HIS. Methods: The current study was of a survey-type, descriptive, cross-sectional nature. The research population included all the existing NIS software used in Iranian academic hospitals which have been designed by three companies (A), (B) and (C). The evaluation of the NIS was carried out based on a researcher-made checklist containing 21 criteria which had already been validated during a pilot study. The data collection procedure was done by means of matching the existing NIS in academic hospitals with the criteria of the aforementioned checklist. Results: The results of examining the evaluation checklists indicated that, in general, the NIS under study met only 4 of 21 the required criteria. In fact, the main criteria such as the ability to connect to the electronic medical record (EMR), being equipped with a medical decision support system based on applicable medical guidelines in the field of nutrition, having critical databases including the drug-food interaction database in order to provide timely warnings to the nutritionist, having international dietary terminology (IDNT) as a nutritional standard language applicable in nutritional diagnoses, the ability to access all reports, and the necessary records of the patient and the possibility of patient follow-up were not available in the NIS of academic hospitals. Conclusion: Considering the importance of the role of the nutrition information system in the health of patients and the ability to provide timely warnings when drug-food interactions occur, it is vital for the manufacturing companies to consider all the important and main criteria of the standard NIS while designing this system to have the same procedure during the process of system design.
