Implementing a multifaceted tailored intervention to improve nutrition adequacy in critically ill patients: results of a multicenter feasibility study.

INTRODUCTION: Tailoring interventions to address identified barriers to change may be an effective strategy to implement guidelines and improve practice. However, there is inadequate data to inform the optimal method or level of tailoring. Consequently, we conducted the PERFormance Enhancement of the Canadian nutrition guidelines by a Tailored Implementation Strategy (PERFECTIS) study to determine the feasibility of a multifaceted, interdisciplinary, tailored intervention aimed at improving adherence to critical care nutrition guidelines for the provision of enteral nutrition. METHODS: A before-after study was conducted in seven ICUs from five hospitals in North America. During a 3-month pre-implementation phase, each ICU completed a nutrition practice audit to identify guideline-practice gaps and a barriers assessment to identify obstacles to practice change. During a one day meeting, the results of the audit and barriers assessment were reviewed and used to develop a site-specific tailored action plan. The tailored action plan was then implemented over a 12-month period that included bi-monthly progress meetings. Compliance with the tailored action plan was determined by the proportion of items in the action plan that was completely implemented. We examined acceptability of the intervention through staff responses to an evaluation questionnaire. In addition, the nutrition practice audit and barriers survey were repeated at the end of the implementation phase to determine changes in barriers and nutrition practices. RESULTS: All five sites successfully completed all aspects of the study. However, their ability to fully implement all of their developed action plans varied from 14% to 75% compliance. Nurses, on average, rated the study-related activities and resources as 'somewhat useful' and a third of respondents 'agreed' or 'strongly agreed' that their nutrition practice had changed as a result of the intervention. We observed a statistically significant 10% (Site range -4.3% to -26.0%) decrease in overall barriers score, and a non-significant 6% (Site range -1.5% to 17.9%) and 4% (-8.3% to 18.2%) increase in the adequacy of total nutrition from calories and protein, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The multifaceted tailored intervention appears to be feasible but further refinement is warranted prior to testing the effectiveness of the approach on a larger scale. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01168128. Registered 21 July 2010.

The validation of a questionnaire to assess barriers to enteral feeding in critically ill patients: a multicenter international survey.

BACKGROUND: A growing body of literature supports the need to identify and address barriers to knowledge use as a strategy to improve care delivery. To this end, we developed a questionnaire to assess barriers to enterally feeding critically ill adult patients, and sought to gain evidence to support the construct validity of this instrument by testing the hypothesis that barriers identified by the questionnaire are inversely associated with nutrition performance. METHODS: We conducted a multilevel multivariable regression analysis of data from an observational study in 55 Intensive Care Units (ICUs) from 5 geographic regions. Data on nutrition practices were abstracted from 1153 patient charts, and 1439 critical care nurses completed the 'Barriers to Enterally Feeding critically Ill Patients' questionnaire. Our primary outcome was adequacy of calories from enteral nutrition (proportion of prescribed calories received enterally) and our primary predictor of interest was a barrier score derived from ratings of importance of items in the questionnaire. RESULTS: The mean adequacy of calories from enteral nutrition was 48 (Standard Deviation (SD)17)%. Evaluation for confounding identified patient type, proportion of nurse respondents working in the ICU greater than 5 years, and geographic region as important covariates. In a regression model adjusting for these covariates plus evaluable nutrition days and APACHE II score, we observed that a 10 point increase in overall barrier score is associated with a 3.5 (Standard Error (SE)1.3)% decrease in enteral nutrition adequacy (p-values <0.01). CONCLUSION: Our results provide evidence to support our a priori hypothesis that barriers negatively impact the provision of nutrition in ICUs, suggesting that our recently developed questionnaire may be a promising tool to identify these important factors, and guide the selection of interventions to optimize nutrition practice. Further research is required to illuminate if and how the type of barrier, profession of the provider, and geographic location of the hospital may influence this association.

Early use of supplemental parenteral nutrition in critically ill patients: results of an international multicenter observational study.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effect of using supplemental parenteral nutrition compared to early enteral nutrition alone on nutritional and clinical outcomes. DESIGN: A multicenter, observational study. SETTING: Two hundred twenty-six intensive care units from 29 Countries. PATIENTS: Mechanically ventilated critically ill adult patients that remained in the intensive care unit for >72 hrs and received early enteral nutrition within 48 hrs from admission. INTERVENTIONS: Data were collected on patient characteristics and daily nutrition practices for up to 12 days. Patient outcomes were recorded after 60 days. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: We compared the outcomes of patients who received early enteral nutrition alone, early enteral nutrition + early parenteral nutrition, and early enteral nutrition + late parenteral nutrition (after 48 hrs of admission). Cox regression analyses were conducted to determine the effect of feeding strategy, adjusted for other confounding variables, on time to being discharged alive from hospital. A total of 2,920 patients were included in this study; 2562 (87.7%) in the early enteral nutrition group, 188 (6.4%) in the early parenteral nutrition group, and 170 (5.8%) in the late parenteral nutrition group. Adequacy of calories and protein was highest in the early parenteral nutrition group (81.2% and 80.1%, respectively) and lowest in the early enteral nutrition group (63.4% and 59.3%) (p < .0001). The 60-day mortality rate was 27.8% in the early enteral nutrition group, 34.6% in the early parenteral nutrition group, and 35.3% in the late parenteral nutrition group (p = .02). The rate of patients discharged alive from hospital was slower in the group that received early parenteral nutrition (unadjusted hazard ratio 0.75, 95% confidence interval 0.59-0.96) and late parenteral nutrition (hazard ratio 0.64, 95% confidence interval 0.51-0.81) (p = .0003) compared to early enteral nutrition. These findings persisted after adjusting for known confounders. CONCLUSIONS: The supplemental use of parenteral nutrition may improve provision of calories and protein but is not associated with any clinical benefit.

Nutrition therapy in the critical care setting: what is "best achievable" practice? An international multicenter observational study.

OBJECTIVE: To describe current nutrition practices in intensive care units and determine "best achievable" practice relative to evidence-based Critical Care Nutrition Clinical Practice Guidelines. DESIGN: An international, prospective, observational, cohort study conducted January to June 2007. SETTING: One hundred fifty-eight adult intensive care units from 20 countries. PATIENTS: Two-thousand nine-hundred forty-six consecutively enrolled mechanically ventilated adult patients (mean, 18.6 per site) who stayed in the intensive care unit for at least 72 hrs. INTERVENTIONS: Data on nutrition practices were collected from intensive care unit admission to intensive care unit discharge or a maximum of 12 days. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Relative to recommendations of the Clinical Practice Guidelines, we report average, best, and worst site performance on key nutrition practices. Adherence to Clinical Practice Guideline recommendations was high for some recommendations: use of enteral nutrition in preference to parenteral nutrition, glycemic control, lack of utilization of arginine-enriched enteral formulas, delivery of hypocaloric parenteral nutrition, and the presence of a feeding protocol. However, significant practice gaps were identified for other recommendations. Average time to start of enteral nutrition was 46.5 hrs (site average range, 8.2-149.1 hrs). The average use of motility agents and small bowel feeding in patients who had high gastric residual volumes was 58.7% (site average range, 0%-100%) and 14.7% (site average range, 0%-100%), respectively. There was poor adherence to recommendations for the use of enteral formulas enriched with fish oils, glutamine supplementation, timing of supplemental parenteral nutrition, and avoidance of soybean oil-based parenteral lipids. Average nutritional adequacy was 59% (site average range, 20.5%-94.4%) for energy and 60.3% (site average range, 18.6%-152.5%) for protein. CONCLUSIONS: Despite high adherence to some recommendations, large gaps exist between many recommendations and actual practice in intensive care units, and consequently nutrition therapy is suboptimal. We have identified "best achievable" practice that can serve as targets for future quality improvement initiatives.

Enhanced protein-energy provision via the enteral route in critically ill patients: a single center feasibility trial of the PEP uP protocol.

INTRODUCTION: The purpose of this pilot study is to assess the feasibility, acceptability, and safety of a new feeding protocol designed to enhance the delivery of enteral nutrition (EN). METHODS: In a prospective before and after study, we evaluated a new protocol compared to our standard feeding protocol. Innovative elements of the new protocol included setting daily volume based goals instead of hourly rate targets, initiating motility agents and protein supplements on Day 1, liberalizing the gastric residual volume threshold, and the option to use trophic feeds. Bedside nurses filled out questionnaires to assess the acceptability of the new approach and we assessed patients' nutritional and clinical outcomes. RESULTS: We enrolled 20 mechanically ventilated patients who stayed in the Intensive Care Unit for more than three days in the before group and 30 such patients in the after group. On a scale where 1 = totally unacceptable and 10 = totally acceptable, 30 nurses rated the new protocol as 7.1 (range 1 to 10) and no incidents compromising patient safety were observed. In the before group, on average, patients received 58.8% of their energy and 61.2% of their protein requirements by EN compared to 67.9% and 73.6% in the after group (P = 0.33 and 0.13). When the subgroup of patients prescribed to receive full volume feeds in the after group were evaluated (n = 18), they received 83.2% and 89.4% of their energy and protein requirements by EN respectively (P = 0.02 for energy and 0.002 for protein compared to the before group). The rates of vomiting, regurgitation, aspiration, and pneumonia were similar between the two groups. CONCLUSIONS: This new feeding protocol seems to be safe and acceptable to critical care nurses. The adoption of this protocol may be associated with enhanced delivery of EN but further trials are warranted to evaluate its effect on nutritional and clinical endpoints. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01102348.

Revised Questionnaire to Assess Barriers to Adequate Nutrition in the Critically Ill.

BACKGROUND: The objective of this study was to revise and improve a questionnaire to assess barriers to providing adequate enteral nutrition (EN) in critically ill adults. METHODS: Changes were made to the questionnaire based on feedback from previous respondents. The revised questionnaire, including 20 potential barriers, was pilot tested in 3 hospitals in North America. Nurses were asked to rate each item based on the degree to which it hinders the provision of EN in their intensive care unit (ICU). The acceptability of the revised questionnaire was evaluated using 5 open-ended questions appended at the end of the questionnaire. RESULTS: A total of 81 nurses completed the revised barriers questionnaire. A total of 72 of 73 (99%) respondents felt that the questionnaire was easy to understand, and 64 of 73 (88%) felt that the individual questions were clear. On average, respondents rated the degree to which potential barriers hindered the delivery of EN to the patient as "very little" or "a little." Statistically significantly differences in mean responses were observed across the 3 ICUs for 8 of the 20 items. The indices of internal reliability were assessed to be acceptable. CONCLUSIONS: The revised questionnaire to assess barriers to EN seems acceptable and clinically sensible and now appears to comprehensively list all possible modifiable barriers to delivering EN. This questionnaire needs further study to determine whether measuring barriers with this questionnaire can translate into improved EN delivery to critically ill patients.

Improving the provision of enteral nutrition in the intensive care unit: a description of a multifaceted intervention tailored to overcome local barriers.

BACKGROUND: Tailoring interventions to address identified barriers to change may be an effective strategy to implement guidelines and improve practice. The purpose of this article is to describe the development and implementation of a tailored intervention to overcome barriers to enterally feeding critically ill patients. METHODS: A before-after study was conducted in 5 hospitals in North America. We adopted a pragmatic stepwise approach to developing and implementing a tailored intervention-namely, (1) formation of a guideline implementation team, (2) identification of barriers to the provision of enteral nutrition (ie, guideline-practice gap analysis, staff survey, focus group with key stakeholders), (3) focus group to prioritize these barriers, (4) brainstorming to select interventions to overcome the prioritized barriers, (5) a 12-month implementation phase including bimonthly progress meetings, and (6) evaluation of the tailored intervention. RESULTS: All sites identified and prioritized barriers to target for change and developed a tailored action plan. Three of the 22 potential barriers were prioritized by all sites, resulting in common components to the action plans. However, barriers and interventions that were unique to specific sites were also identified. All sites were successful in implementing most of the selected strategies during the implementation phase, although the degree of implementation varied depending on the type of strategy and the site. CONCLUSION: This stepwise process to developing and implementing an intervention tailored to barriers is promising and could be considered by dietitians and other providers seeking to improve nutrition practice.

Development and psychometric properties of a questionnaire to assess barriers to feeding critically ill patients.

BACKGROUND: To successfully implement the recommendations of critical care nutrition guidelines, one potential approach is to identify barriers to providing optimal enteral nutrition (EN) in the intensive care unit (ICU), and then address these barriers systematically. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to develop a questionnaire to assess barriers to enterally feeding critically ill patients and to conduct preliminary validity testing of the new instrument. METHODS: The content of the questionnaire was guided by a published conceptual framework, literature review, and consultation with experts. The questionnaire was pre-tested on a convenience sample of 32 critical care practitioners, and then field tested with 186 critical care providers working at 5 hospitals in North America. The revised questionnaire was pilot tested at another ICU (n = 43). Finally, the questionnaire was distributed to a random sample of ICU nurses twice, two weeks apart, to determine test retest reliability (n = 17). Descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis, Cronbach alpha, intraclass correlations (ICC), and kappa coefficients were conducted to assess validity and reliability. RESULTS: We developed a questionnaire with 26 potential barriers to delivery of EN asking respondents to rate their importance as barriers in their ICU. Face and content validity of the questionnaire was established through literature review and expert input. The factor analysis indicated a five-factor solution and accounted for 72% of the variance in barriers: guideline recommendations and implementation strategies, delivery of EN to the patient, critical care provider attitudes and behavior, dietitian support, and ICU resources. Overall, the indices of internal reliability for the derived factor subscales and the overall instrument were acceptable (subscale Cronbach alphas range 0.84 - 0.89). However, the test retest reliability was variable and below acceptable thresholds for the majority of items (ICC's range -0.13 to 0.70). The within group agreement, an indices reflecting the reliability of aggregating individual responses to the ICU level was also variable (ICC's range 0.0 to 0.82). CONCLUSIONS: We developed a questionnaire to identify barriers to enteral feeding in critically ill patients. Additional studies are planned to further revise and evaluate the reliability and validity of the instrument.

Driving perioperative nutrition quality improvement processes forward!

Evidence supporting the important role of nutrition therapy in surgical patients has evolved, with several randomized trials and meta-analyses of randomized trials clearly demonstrating benefits. Despite this evidence, surgeons and anesthesiologists have been slow to adopt recommended practices, and the traditional dogma of delaying the initiation of and restricting the amount of nutrition during the postoperative period persists. Consequently, the nutrition therapy received by surgical patients remains suboptimal; thus, patients suffer worse clinical outcomes. Knowledge translation (KT) describes the process of moving evidence learned from clinical research, and summarized in clinical practice guidelines, to its incorporation into clinical and policy decision making. In this paper, we apply Graham et al's knowledge-to-action model to illuminate our understanding of the issues pertinent to KT in surgical nutrition. We illustrate various components of this model using empirically derived research, commentaries, and published studies from both critical care and surgical nutrition. Barriers to improving surgical nutrition practice may be related to (1) the nature of the underlying evidence and clinical practice guidelines; (2) guideline implementation factors; (3) characteristics of the health system, hospital, and surgical team; (4) provider attitudes and beliefs; and (5) patient factors (eg, type of surgery, underlying disease, and nutrition status). Interventions tailored to overcoming these barriers must be developed, evaluated, and implemented. A system of audit and feedback must guide this process and evaluate improvements over time so that every patient undergoing major surgery will have the opportunity to be optimally assessed and managed according to best nutrition practices.

Barriers to feeding critically ill patients: a multicenter survey of critical care nurses.

PURPOSE: The aims of this study were to describe the barriers to enterally feeding critically ill patients from a nursing perspective and to examine whether these barriers differ across centers. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A cross-sectional survey was conducted in 5 hospitals in North America. A 45-item questionnaire was administered to critical care nurses to evaluate the barriers to enterally feeding patients. RESULTS: A total of 138 of 340 critical care nurses completed the questionnaire (response rate of 41%). The 5 most important barriers to nurses were as follows: (1) other aspects of patient care taking priority over nutrition, (2) not enough feeding pumps available, (3) enteral formula not available on the unit, (4) difficulties in obtaining small bowel access in patients not tolerating enteral nutrition, and (5) no or not enough dietitian coverage during weekends and holidays. For 18 (81%) of 22 potential barriers, the rated magnitude of importance was similar across the 5 intensive care units. CONCLUSION: Nurses in our multicenter survey identified important barriers to providing adequate enteral nutrition to their critically ill patients. The importance of these barriers does not appear to differ significantly across different clinical settings. Future research is required to evaluate if tailoring interventions to overcome these identified barriers is an effective strategy of improving nutrition practice.

Optimizing nutrition in intensive care units: empowering critical care nurses to be effective agents of change.

Observational studies have consistently revealed wide variation in nutritional practices across intensive care units and indicated that the provision of adequate nutrition to critically ill patients is suboptimal. To date, the potential role of critical care nurses in implementing nutritional guideline recommendations and improving nutritional therapy has received little consideration. Factors that influence nurses' nutritional practices include the lack of guidelines or conflicting evidence-based recommendations pertaining to nurses' practice, strategies for implementing guidelines that are not tailored to barriers nurses face when feeding patients, strategies to communicate best evidence that do not capitalize on nurses' preference for seeking information through social interaction, prioritization of nutrition in initial and continuing nursing education, and a lack of interdisciplinary team collaboration in the intensive care unit when decisions on how to feed patients are made. Future research and quality improvement strategies are required to correct these deficits and successfully empower nurses to become nutritional champions at the bedside. Using nurses as agents of change will help standardize nutritional practices and ensure that critically ill patients are optimally fed.

When early enteral feeding is not possible in critically ill patients: results of a multicenter observational study.

BACKGROUND: Early enteral nutrition (EN) is the preferred strategy for feeding the critically ill; however, it is not always possible to initiate EN within the recommended 24 to 48 hours. When these situations arise, controversy exists whether to start feeding early via the parenteral route or to delay feeding until EN can be provided. METHODS: A multicenter, international, observational study examined nutrition practices in intensive care units (ICUs). Eligible patients were critically ill patients with a medical diagnosis who remained in the ICU for >72 hours and received EN >48 hours after admission. Data were collected on site, including patient characteristics, daily nutrition practices, and outcomes at 60 days. Nutrition and clinical outcomes were compared between 3 groups of patients: (1) early parenteral nutrition (PN) (<48 hours after admission) and late EN (>48 hours after admission), (2) late PN and late EN, and (3) late EN and no PN. RESULTS: Of the 703 patients who met our inclusion criteria, 541 (77.0%) medical patients received late EN and no PN. In patients receiving late EN and PN, 83 (11.8%) received early PN and 79 (11.2%) received late PN. Adequacy of calories and protein from total nutrition was highest in the early PN group (74.1% ± 21.2% and 71.5% ± 24.9%, respectively) and lowest in the late EN group (42.9% ± 21.2% and 38.7% ± 21.6%) (P < .001). The proportion of patients dead or remaining in hospital was significantly higher for early PN compared with late EN and PN (unadjusted hazard ratio for early PN = 0.55; 95% confidence interval, 0.37-0.83, P = .015). However, this difference did not remain significant (P = .65) after adjustment for baseline characteristics. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that initiating PN early, when it is not possible to feed enterally early, may improve provision of calories and protein but is not associated with better clinical outcomes compared with late EN or PN.

Extreme obesity and outcomes in critically ill patients.

BACKGROUND: Recent literature suggests that obese critically ill patients do not have worse outcomes than patients who are normal weight. However, outcomes in extreme obesity (BMI ≥ 40 kg/m(2)) are unclear. We sought to determine the association between extreme obesity and ICU outcomes. METHODS: We analyzed data from a multicenter international observational study of ICU nutrition practices that occurred in 355 ICUs in 33 countries from 2007 to 2009. Included patients were mechanically ventilated adults ≥ 18 years old who remained in the ICU for > 72 h. Using generalized estimating equations and Cox proportional hazard modeling with clustering by ICU and adjusting for potential confounders, we compared extremely obese to normal-weight patients in terms of duration of mechanical ventilation (DMV), ICU length of stay (LOS), hospital LOS, and 60-day mortality. RESULTS: Of the 8,813 patients included in this analysis, 3,490 were normal weight (BMI 18.5-24.9 kg/m(2)), 348 had BMI 40 to 49.9 kg/m(2), 118 had BMI 50 to 59.9 kg/m(2), and 58 had BMI ≥ 60 kg/m(2). Unadjusted analyses suggested that extremely obese critically ill patients have improved mortality (OR for death, 0.77; 95% CI, 0.62-0.94), but this association was not significant after adjustment for confounders. However, an adjusted analysis of survivors found that extremely obese patients have a longer DMV and ICU LOS, with the most obese patients (BMI ≥ 60 kg/m(2)) also having longer hospital LOS. CONCLUSIONS: During critical illness, extreme obesity is not associated with a worse survival advantage compared with normal weight. However, among survivors, BMI ≥ 40 kg/m(2) is associated with longer time on mechanical ventilation and in the ICU. These results may have prognostic implications for extremely obese critically ill patients.

Bridging the guideline-practice gap in critical care nutrition: a review of guideline implementation studies.

Several clinical practice guidelines focusing on nutrition therapy in mechanically ventilated, critically ill patients are available to assist busy critical care practitioners in making decisions regarding feeding their patients. However, large gaps have been observed between guideline recommendations and actual practice. To be effective in optimizing nutrition practice, guideline development must be followed by systematic guideline implementation strategies. Systematic reviews of studies evaluating guideline implementation interventions outside the critical care setting found that these strategies, such as reminders, educational outreach, and audit and feedback, produce modest to moderate improvements in processes of care, with considerable variation observed both within and across studies. Unfortunately, the optimal strategies to implement guidelines in the intensive care unit are poorly understood, with scarce data available to guide our decisions on which strategies to use. The authors identified 3 cluster randomized trials evaluating the implementation of nutrition guidelines in the critical care setting. These studies demonstrated small improvements in nutrition practice, but no significant effect on patient outcomes. There are some data to suggest that tailoring guideline implementation strategies to overcome identified barriers to change might be a more effective approach than the multifaceted "one size fits all" strategy used in previous studies. Adopting this tailored approach to guideline implementation in future studies may help bridge the current guideline-practice gap and lead to significant improvements in nutrition practices and patient outcomes.

Lost in (knowledge) translation!

Critical care nutrition guidelines have been developed to help busy practitioners decide how to feed their critically ill patients. However, despite the publication of guidelines and efforts to disseminate and implement them, there are large gaps between what the recommendations say and what is happening at the bedside. Consequently, the nutrition therapy received by many patients remains suboptimal. Knowledge translation is a term increasingly used in healthcare to describe the process of moving evidence learned from clinical research and summarized in clinical practice guidelines to incorporation into clinical and policy decision making. In this article, knowledge about the implementation of critical care nutrition guidelines is applied to Graham et al's knowledge-to-action model to illuminate the issues pertinent to knowledge translation in critical care nutrition. This model has 2 components: knowledge creation and action. The action component consists of 8 phases of the action cycle that represent activities needed to move knowledge into practice and are derived from planned-action theory. Components of this model are illustrated via empirically derived research, commentaries, and published studies from the field of critical care nutrition. It is hoped that this article and related articles in this issue of JPEN will help critical care nutrition practitioners to better understand the often complex and convoluted road of translating knowledge into practice so that as a community we are no longer "lost" but have direction that can bring about positive changes in nutrition practice.

The relationship between organizational culture and implementation of clinical practice guidelines: a narrative review.

The context in which critical care providers work has been shown to be associated with adherence to recommendations of clinical practice guidelines (CPGs). Consideration of contextual factors such as organizational culture may therefore be important when implementing guidelines. Organizational culture has been defined simply as "how things are around here" and encompasses leadership, communication, teamwork, conflict resolution, and other domains. This narrative review highlights the results of recent quantitative and qualitative studies, including studies on adherence to nutrition guidelines in the critical care setting, which demonstrate that elements of organizational culture, such as leadership support, interprofessional collaboration, and shared beliefs about the utility of guidelines, influence adherence to guideline recommendations. Outside nutrition therapy, there is emerging evidence that strategies focusing on organizational change (eg, revision of professional roles, interdisciplinary teams, integrated care delivery, computer systems, and continuous quality improvement) can favorably influence professional performance and patient outcomes. Consequently, future interventions aimed at implementing nutrition guidelines should aim to measure and take into account organizational culture, in addition to considering the characteristics of the patient, provider, and guideline. Further high quality, multimethod studies are required to improve our understanding of how culture influences guideline implementation, and which organizational change strategies might be most effective in optimizing nutrition therapy.

Understanding adherence to guidelines in the intensive care unit: development of a comprehensive framework.

BACKGROUND: Clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) have been hailed as a useful method of translating evidence into practice. Several CPGs have been published that provide recommendations for feeding patients in the intensive care unit (ICU). Despite a rigorous development process and active dissemination of these guidelines, their impact on nutrition practice has been modest. The purpose of this study was to develop a comprehensive framework for understanding adherence to nutrition CPGs in the critical care setting. METHODS: Multiple case studies were completed at 4 Canadian ICUs. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 7 key informants at each ICU site who were asked about their perceptions and attitudes toward guidelines in general and the Canadian Critical Care Nutrition CPGs specifically. Interview transcripts and related documents were analyzed qualitatively using a framework approach. RESULTS: The 5 key components of the developed framework were characteristics of the CPGs, the implementation process, institutional factors, provider intent, and the clinical condition of the patient. These key themes encapsulate numerous itemized factors that contribute to guideline adherence either as barriers or enablers. CONCLUSIONS: Adherence to nutrition CPGs is determined by a complex interaction of multiple factors that act as barriers or enablers. The comprehensive framework for adherence to CPGs in the ICU attempts to elucidate this process and provides a useful template for future research. Future quality improvement initiatives should assess local barriers to change and design interventions to overcome these barriers.

Attitudes and beliefs related to the Canadian critical care nutrition practice guidelines: an international survey of critical care physicians and dietitians.

BACKGROUND: The objective of this study was to evaluate the attitudes of critical care practitioners toward the Canadian Critical Care Nutrition Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPGs) and compare them with actual practice. METHODS: An international Web-based survey was conducted. Respondents were asked to rate their strength of recommendation for 26 nutrition practices included in the Canadian CPGs. Attitudinal results were compared with actual practice on each recommendation. RESULTS: 514 practitioners from 27 countries completed the survey. The majority (91.4%) considered nutrition therapy to be very important for critically ill patients. There was strong endorsement for the following established practices: enteral nutrition (EN) used in preference to parenteral nutrition (PN), use of polymeric solutions and feeding protocols, and avoiding hyperglycemia. There was also strong endorsement for the following practices that are not routinely done in actual practice: EN initiated within 24 to 48 hours of admission, use of motility agents, head-of-bed elevation, use of glutamine and antioxidants, and maximizing EN before starting PN. There was diversity of opinion on the recommendations pertaining to arginine-supplemented diets, small bowel feeding, use of pharmaconutrients, intensive insulin therapy, and withholding soybean oil lipids in PN solutions and hypocaloric PN. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, attitudes toward the Canadian CPGs were positive. However, we identified some areas where there was diversity of opinion, highlighting a need for further research and education. System tools may be a useful strategy to integrate guideline recommendations into practice where there is strong endorsement but the recommendation is not happening in actual practice.

Nutrition therapy for the critically ill surgical patient: we need to do better!

BACKGROUND: To identify opportunities for quality improvement, the nutrition adequacy of critically ill surgical patients, in contrast to medical patients, is described. METHODS: International, prospective, and observational studies conducted in 2007 and 2008 in 269 intensive care units (ICUs) were combined for purposes of this analysis. Sites provided institutional and patient characteristics and nutrition data from ICU admission to ICU discharge for maximum of 12 days. Medical and surgical patients staying in ICU at least 3 days were compared. RESULTS: A total of 5497 mechanically ventilated adult patients were enrolled; 37.7% had surgical ICU admission diagnosis. Surgical patients were less likely to receive enteral nutrition (EN) (54.6% vs 77.8%) and more likely to receive parenteral nutrition (PN) (13.9% vs 4.4%) (P < .0001). Among patients initiating EN in ICU, surgical patients started EN 21.0 hours later on average (57.8 vs 36.8 hours, P < .0001). Consequently, surgical patients received less of their prescribed calories from EN (33.4% vs 49.6%, P < .0001) or from all nutrition sources (45.8% vs 56.1%, P < .0001). These differences remained after adjustment for patient and site characteristics. Patients undergoing cardiovascular and gastrointestinal surgery were more likely to use PN, were less likely to use EN, started EN later, and had lower total nutrition and EN adequacy rates compared with other surgical patients. Use of feeding and/or glycemic control protocols was associated with increased nutrition adequacy. CONCLUSIONS: Surgical patients receive less nutrition than medical patients. Cardiovascular and gastrointestinal surgery patients are at highest risk of iatrogenic malnutrition. Strategies to improve nutrition performance, including use of protocols, are needed.

The value of audit and feedback reports in improving nutrition therapy in the intensive care unit: a multicenter observational study.

BACKGROUND: The objective of this study was to determine whether auditing practice and providing feedback in the form of benchmarked site reports is an effective strategy to improve adherence to nutrition guidelines. METHODS: The authors conducted a multicenter observational study in Canadian intensive care units (ICUs). In January 2007, an audit of daily nutrition information was collected (type and amount of nutrition received and strategies to improve nutrition delivery). Each ICU was e-mailed individualized benchmarked performance reports documenting their performance compared with the Canadian Critical Care Nutrition guidelines and in relation to the other ICUs. Nutrition practice was reaudited in May 2008 to evaluate changes in practice. RESULTS: Twenty-six ICUs in Canada participated, with 473 and 486 patients accrued in 2007 and 2008, respectively. The authors observed a significant increase in enteral nutrition (EN) adequacy (from 45.1% to 51.9% for calories, and from 44.8% to 51.5% for protein) and an increase in the percentage of patients receiving EN without parenteral nutrition (from 71.9% to 81.3%). They also observed trends toward improvements in the percentage of patients who had EN started within 48 hours (from 60.3% to 66.8%). There were no significant differences in the use of motility agents or small bowel feeding in patients who had high gastric residual volumes. CONCLUSION: Audit and feedback reports are associated with improvement in some nutrition practices in many ICUs; however, the magnitude of these effects is quite modest. More research is needed to determine the optimal methods of using audit and feedback to improve quality of nutrition care.