Digital nutrition registration aiding pop health efforts in Sweden

Preventing malnutrition in older people is an important part of maintaining good health, and in Sweden, they’re taking that seriously, digitizing nutrition registration in an effort to prolong good health among the elderly in that country.

Helle Sörensen, project leader at Ostersunds Municipality in Sweden, has trained her sights on this digitization effort, and she’ll share her insight at HIMSS24 in Orlando in her session, “Digitization of Nutrition Registration – From Idea to a Solution,” scheduled for March 13 from 9:15 to 9:45 a.m. in W307A. Learn more and register.

According to Sörensen, Sweden is facing a major demographic challenge: There are an increasing number of people aged 80 and older who need assistance from the municipality, but its workforce is decreasing, resulting in major supply challenges. 

“To meet that challenge we need to work smarter with several digital solutions that can make work processes more efficient, but we also need to focus on the preventive work,” said Sörensen.

That, she said, means keeping individuals healthy and self-sufficient longer, thereby reducing the need for nursing efforts from the municipality.

“Three important areas to remain healthy and self-sufficient are appropriate nutrition, physical activity and counteracting social isolation,” said Sörensen. “The digital diet registration is a step in being able to better and more efficiently analyze what the patient is eating, put in place the right measures and at the same time increase the awareness of the staff who are closest to the patient.”

Sörensen’s presentation will focus on the nutrition registration digitization efforts, and how her team proceeded according to the Norwegian method. At the same time, she’ll explain that, no matter how strong the needs analysis and planning are, there will always be unexpected wrinkles and challenges.

“Developing new solutions in collaboration with suppliers is exciting but also challenging,” she said. “The solution is actually the first of its kind in Sweden.”

Learn more about this session and register for HIMSS24 in Orlando.
 

Jeff Lagasse is editor of Healthcare Finance News.
Email: jlagasse@himss.org
Healthcare Finance News is a HIMSS Media publication.