AGA Section
Abstract 4 Tube Feed App: A Novel Smart Phone Application for Enteral Nutrition

https://doi.org/10.1053/j.gastro.2017.06.022Get rights and content

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Background & Aims

Critical illness is characterized by a high catabolic state. American Society of Enteral and Parenteral Nutrition (ASPEN) and European Society of Enteral and Parenteral Nutrition (ESPEN) recommend early nutritional support, regardless of the previous nutritional status. However, in most cases enteral nutrition is delayed because of lack of knowledge and training of treating physicians. Our study’s aim was to assess improvement in enteral nutrition practices and patient outcomes after

Methods

We developed a smart phone application for tube feeding with the ability to choose the type and rate of tube feed formula based on patient characteristics and comorbidities. The latest nutrition society guidelines were reviewed to develop the algorithm. The smart phone application was installed in an iPod that was made available to the medicine critical care team at Oklahoma University Medical Center in June 2015. We conducted a retrospective chart analysis from June 2014 to March 2016. Data on

Results

We identified 160 patients before and 216 patients after the introduction of the smart phone application who were unable to tolerate oral diet and were started on tube feeding. In the app group patients were older (59.1 years vs 54.7 years; P < .01) and were more likely to have cancer (36% vs 24.1%; P < .03). Otherwise the 2 groups were similar with regards to gender, BMI, nutritional risk, admission to nutritionist recommendations, and other comorbidities including hypertension, diabetes,

Conclusions

Our study showed that using the Tube feeding app can lead to increased compliance with enteral nutrition guidelines and early provision of enteral nutrition to MICU patients. Although we did not find any improvement in ICU stay or mortality in our study, there was an improvement in vasopressor use after introduction of the app. Our study is limited by its power to detect improvement in patient outcomes and a larger prospective multicenter trial is needed to validate our findings and study its

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