3. Sustainable solutions to primary care problems
- Date: 2022-10-12
- Concurrent Session: Concurrent Session B
- Time: 1:45- 2:30 pm
- Room:
- Style: Presentation (information provided to audience, with opportunity for audience to ask question)
- Focus: Balance between both (e.g. Presentation of a best-practice guideline that combines research evidence, policy issues and practical steps for implementation)
- Target Audience: Leadership (ED, clinical lead, board chair, board member, etc.)
Learning Objectives:
- Introduce an innovative digital health technology (RxFood) to facilitate dietary assessments
- Gain knowledge on a stepped model of care using RxFood to support individual and group dietetics sessions within primary care
- Learn how the technology achieved the quadruple aims based on a real-world deployment amongst a large family health team
- Gain awareness on how RxFood can be integrated into most nutritional therapy programs for chronic disease prevention and management to support collaboration, health equity, efficient resource utilization, quantify outcomes, and create population health level dietary data.
Summary/Abstract:
Diet is a leading risk factors for chronic disease, and clinical guidelines recommend medical nutrition therapy (MNT) to address this risk. To enhance access to MNT in primary care, a digital health technology (RxFood) was deployed. RxFood is a smartphone application employing AI to generate personalized measures of diet. Patients simply take photos of their food for 3 days. Photos are analyzed for food content and size. Clinicians receive a report of diet intake and quality (e.g., percentage of whole grains, how often red meat is consumed, etc.). RxFood integrates into workflow, has proven accuracy, generates reports aligned with clinical guidelines, and meets privacy/security standards. It saves time on collecting and documenting dietary information. Over 6-months, RxFood was deployed within a large family health team. A dietitian/physician identified patients with metabolic conditions (pre/diabetes, overweight/obesity, dyslipidemia) to complete a 3-day RxFood log before their first dietitian appointment. This data was used to provide personalized dietitian advice. A second 3-day RxFood log was done 3 months later to quantify change. Changes in weight/bloodwork were also tracked. 98% of invited patients completed both logs. Positive improvements in diet quality and clinical outcomes (weight, lipids, and A1c) were observed. The experience was deemed positive by clinicians and patients and population-level dietary data was generated for the clinic to inform future programming. Cost-savings were estimated based on clinician efficiencies and clinical outcomes. Being virtual, it supported access to care for patients. RxFood offers a promising technology to support MNT for metabolic disease in primary care.
Presenter
- Sonia Colautti, RD, Thames Valley Family Health Team
- Jeffrey Alfonsi MD, FRCPC, London Health Sciences Centre, Inner Analytics