September 16-20 is Malnutrition Awareness Week™. The American Society for Parenteral & Enteral Nutrition (ASPEN) created this annual campaign in 2012, to build awareness for malnutrition which is a serious and pervasive condition that is often underdiagnosed. An estimated 1 of 2 older adults is at risk of becoming or is malnourished. Malnutrition can impact healthy aging, as malnutrition (most commonly not enough protein and calories) can lead to multiple poor health outcomes, including increased medical complications, longer lengths of hospital stay, increased mortality, and decreased quality of life.

This year’s Malnutrition Awareness Week™ theme is Educate, Empower, and Eliminate. Here are resources to help you take action during Malnutrition Awareness WeekTM and throughout the year.

Educate: ASPEN offers a series of continuing education webinars during Malnutrition Awareness WeekTM. One webinar, Improving Health Equity through Quality:  The Global Malnutrition Composite Score (GMCS) highlights how factors such as social determinants of health (SDOH) can impact malnutrition. The Global Malnutrition Composite Score is the first nutrition-focused clinical quality measure in a US Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) payment system. The GMCS has been identified as a key measure to improve rural health, SDOH, and food insecurity. While the GMCS is a voluntary hospital measure targeted to improve quality malnutrition care in the acute care setting, it also creates an opportunity to strengthen malnutrition care transitions into the community. An expansion of the GMCS quality measure was recently adopted by CMS as a quality measure for all adults aged 18 years of age and older.

Empower: practice tools can help empower clinicians to improve malnutrition care. The ASPEN Malnutrition Solution Center offers a number of resources, including a practice tool summarizing Key Nutrition Screening, Assessment, and Malnutrition Diagnostic Processes and Tools for Adults. There are also resources on discharge planning and interventions for patients with malnutrition, such as discharge practice tool and checklist. ASPEN has guides for patients and consumers too, including a Consumer Guide for Older Adults, Care for your Nutrition:  Get the Facts.

Eliminate:  eliminating malnutrition is a long term goal which requires continued engagement and commitment of the interprofessional team. ICAA members are uniquely poised to help strengthen the hospital to community connection, including through innovative community nutrition programs and resources that help address older adult malnutrition.

Additional information and materials on malnutrition and the Global Malnutrition Composite Score are available through these resources:

• Commission on Dietetic Registration:  including webinars, implementation Global Malnutrition Composite Score implementation resources, and peer-reviewed articles
• Malnutrition Quality Improvement Initiative: including a malnutrition care quality improvement toolkit and a Global Malnutrition Composite Score quick start guide
• Abbott Nutrition Health Institute:  including videos and infographics.

Mary Beth Arensberg, PhD, RDN, LDN, FAND

Director Health Policy and Programs, Abbott Nutrition Division of Abbott