Newsletter

[ Vol. 10 No. 1 ] (January - April 2009 )
Home nutritional support

Luciana B Sutanto
Department of Clinical Nutrition, Medical Faculty, Indonesia University
Jakarta, Indonesia.

Home Nutritional Support (HNS) is indicated for patients with predicted necessary long-term nutritional therapy. This may either be home enteral nutrition (HEN) or home parenteral nutrition (HPN). The patient’s medical condition must be stable before any form HNS can be implemented. Aside from this, there must be adequate cooperation and understanding, not only from the patients themselves but also from their family members.

One of the benefits of HNS is cost-savings of up to 50% for HPN and 70% for HEN. HNS may also increase survival and general wellbeing. Among pediatric patients with intestinal failure, HPN provides a successful bridge from hospital nutrition to HEN.

Managing home nutritional support requires careful assessment of nutrition, planning, monitoring and follow up. Interdisciplinary team is necessary for providing goodmanagement. Nutrition care plan in HNS includes access, formula selection, administration technique, reimbursement, preparing patient and family in education, supplies, monitoring and complication identification and management.

Home nutritional support will likely increase as the paradigm shifts to more shortened length of stay in hospital. The skilled nutrition support clinicians will contribute positively to the outcome of the health and the quality of life of patients.

From  
The 12^th PENSA Congress
October 18-20 2007, Century Park Hotel. Manila, Philippines 
Page: 41