Implementation of a computerized system in pediatric wards to improve nutritional care: a cluster randomized trial

Malnutrition occurs frequently in hospitalized children. We aimed to assess whether a computerized system could lead to improved clinical practices in malnourished children.

Healthcare workers (242) from six departments in a pediatric university hospital participated in a cluster randomized trial, studying 1457 malnourished children hospitalized from September 2009 to August 2011. Following a baseline observational pre-intervention period, all departments were randomized into either intervention or control arms. A computerized malnutrition-screening system was implemented in the intervention group to automatically trigger a dietetic referral in real time. Furthermore, the nutrition support team conducted an awareness campaign with healthcare workers and a leadership-based strategy to reinforce the message during the entire study period. Adherence to practice guidelines (daily weights, investigation of etiology for malnutrition, management by a dietitian and application of refeeding protocols) was compared between pre- and post-intervention periods in both the intervention and trial arms.

When compared with the pre-intervention period, the clinical practices were significantly improved within the intervention arm for every outcome (P<0.01), whereas remained unchanged in the control arm. In addition, during the post-intervention period, malnutrition etiology investigation by physicians (adjusted odds ratio (OR) of 4.4, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.7-11.8, P=0.003) and management by a dietitian (OR 2.7, 95% CI 1.0-6.9, P=0.046) occurred more frequently in the intervention clusters.

Implementation of an electronic system to detect malnutrition in real time was associated with a rapid improvement in clinical practices for better care of hospitalized children.