Pediatr Gastroenterol Hepatol Nutr.  2012 Jun;15(2):79-84.

How to Manage the Pediatric Nutritional Support Team: Updates

• Yang HR

Abstract

Pediatric patients in hospital are at risk of malnutrition at admission and even during their hospitalization. Although the concept of nutritional support team (NST) was introduced to hospitals for optimal nutritional care since 1960s and the benefits of pediatric NST have been proven by many studies and reports in terms of patient clinical outcome and cost saving, the pediatric NST is not widespread yet. The pediatric NST composed of pediatricians, dieticians, pharmacist, and nutrition support nurses as core members dedicated to nutritional care in children should be independent of central NST or other disciplines, but closely cooperate with other teams in hospitals. There is no doubt that a multidisciplinary NST is an effective way to provide appropriate nutritional support to an individual patient. Therefore, the implementation of the pediatric NST in hospitals should be recommended to provide optimum nutritional support including enteral tube feeding and parenteral nutrition and to assess pediatric patients at risk of malnutrition.

Keyword

Malnutrition; Nutritional support team; Nutritional care; Pediatrician; Child

MeSH Terms

Child
Cost Savings
Enteral Nutrition
Hospitalization
Humans
Malnutrition
Nutritional Support
Parenteral Nutrition
Pharmacists