A new article that outlines the limitations of current Intensive Care Unit nutrition methods and the cutting-edge technologies that could help address the problem is published in the current issue of ICU Management & Practice Journal. Pierre Singer, Professor of Anesthesia and Intensive Care, Sackler School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, and Liron Elia, CEO of ART MEDICAL, a medical device company that specializes in nutrition-based ICU technology, co-authored the article.
Recent studies, say the authors, suggest that nutritional guidelines across most intensive care units are not being implemented and that current approaches to determining feeding goals don’t measure a patient’s energy expenditure. As a result, they say, 60 percent of patients receive inaccurate nutrition targets with approximately 75 percent of ICU patients receiving less than 80 percent of target nutrition on the first day. These findings likely underestimate the challenge of maintaining proper nutrition in ICU patients, as most ICUs perform nutrition audits only one day each year.
“Most ICUs are not equipped with computerized information systems to continuously calculate a patient’s energy balance, account for time lost by stopping feeding, and compensate for nutritional losses,” wrote Singer. “The lack of accurate, real-time data about a patient’s feeding status and nutritional needs may increase the risk of morbidity and mortality.”
The research paper suggests medical nutrition therapy can be improved with ICU feeding technology that:
- optimizes patient feeding through real-time reflux detection and prevention
- measures energy expenditure and personalizes feeding formula
- monitors enteral feeding delivery
- calculates and monitors supplement nutrition
- automates communication between ICU and post-ICU discharge units
“Major risks and in-hospital complications are inter-connected in ICU patients, none of which are addressed sufficiently with the current standard of care,” wrote Elia. “There is need for a personalized nutrition-based ICU system that verifies the tube position and captures a patient’s energy consumption in real-time, per the new guidelines, that correlates with changes in patient’s status and continuously assesses patient’s nutritional needs.”
