Rehabilitation in the Home: Dietetics on the menu
Rochelle Hoggan, South Metropolitan Area Health Service
Abstract
The South Metropolitan Area Health Service (SMAHS) Rehabilitation in the Home (RITH) program is an early discharge service providing comprehensive allied health input, including a dietetic service. This service provides intervention for a range of clients with poor nutrition status, deficiencies in vitamins and minerals, diabetes and enteral feeding needs.
The RITH dietetic service is a relatively unique service as traditionally most dietetic intervention occurs within the acute hospital setting or in an outpatient setting. An overview of the establishment of this service detailing the repertoire of clients, service delivery provision and the partnerships created with external departments, in particular Pharmacy and HITH, in the management of clients.
As clients are considered early discharge this has presented obstacles/issues in these clients receiving the same services as “in-patients”. Key issues will be outlined. These include:
- Barriers of providing dietary supplements to clients, that they would have received if they had remained in the hospital setting for their rehabilitation.
- Lack of relevant dietetic diagnostic measures in the community.
- Implementation of reliable and valid outcome measures that demonstrate change/improvement in a short time frame.
A discussion of further input and growth of this service is detailed. This includes the development of an internal screening tool to capture a greater range of clients, growth of the service to prevent admissions/reduce hospital length of stay for clients with enteral feeding requirements and improving partnerships to capture clients for nutritional management of medical issues, for example pressure ulcers.
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Download the presentation (
pdf - 474 KB) from the 1st Hospital in the Home Society (Australasia) Conference, 2008.
Biography
Rochelle Hoggan graduated from Curtin University of Technology (Perth, WA) with a Bachelor of Applied Science (Speech and Hearing science) in 1993. She worked as a speech pathologist in both paediatric and adult fields. Rochelle has worked in remote area positions and tertiary hospitals in Perth, the UK and New Zealand. In November 2006 she commenced as the coordinator for RITH at Fremantle Hospital in a job share arrangement. In this time period the RITH service in Perth has gone through significant growth and has been recognised in WA health awards for it’s excellence in service.
Contact
Coordinator, Rehabilitation in the Home, South Metropolitan Area Health Service
Phone: 08 9431 3899
