Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Four steps, but an integrated whole

Although we have the Nutrition Care Process divided into 4 distinct steps, we must always view them as a whole unit, and realize that they do not necessarily happen in tidy neat sequences. 

Dr Kight refered to the "dance" of the nutrition session with a patient/client.  The dance was two steps forward, one step backwards, two steps forward, one step backwards: repeat....

She was referring to the way we have a discussion with a client during a typical dietitian/client encounter.  We gather some information, begin to formulate our preliminary thoughts about what nutrition diagnoses we are dealing with, then we go back into data gathering mode again and gather some more information to confirm our previous thinking, or in some cases decide that perhaps it is actually a different nutrition diagnosis.  In some cases we may already be into providing the nutrition intervention, when the client offers some more information that causes us to re-think our intervention, and perhaps even the nutrition diagnosis that we should be addressing. 

The Nutrition Care Process may be depicted as separate steps, but having all the steps connected is critical to optimizing out ability to help our patients achieve positive nutrition outcomes.

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