title: Gauging food and nutritional care quality in hospitals.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Food and nutritional care quality must be assessed and scored, so as to improve health institution efficacy. This study aimed to detect and compare actions related to food and nutritional care quality in public and private hospitals.
  
  
  METHODS
  Investigation of the Hospital Food and Nutrition Service (HFNS) of 37 hospitals by means of structured interviews assessing two quality control corpora, namely nutritional care quality (NCQ) and hospital food service quality (FSQ). HFNS was also evaluated with respect to human resources per hospital bed and per produced meal.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Comparison between public and private institutions revealed that there was a statistically significant difference between the number of hospital beds per HFNS staff member (p = 0.02) and per dietitian (p < 0.01). The mean compliance with NCQ criteria in public and private institutions was 51.8% and 41.6%, respectively. The percentage of public and private health institutions in conformity with FSQ criteria was 42.4% and 49.1%, respectively. Most of the actions comprising each corpus, NCQ and FSQ, varied considerably between the two types of institution. NCQ was positively influenced by hospital type (general) and presence of a clinical dietitian. FSQ was affected by institution size: large and medium-sized hospitals were significantly better than small ones.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Food and nutritional care in hospital is still incipient, and actions concerning both nutritional care and food service take place on an irregular basis. It is clear that the design of food and nutritional care in hospital indicators is mandatory, and that guidelines for the development of actions as well as qualification and assessment of nutritional care are urgent.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Food Practices and Behavior - PrátiCA, Nutrition and Metabolism, Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine of Ribeirão Preto, University of São Paulo, Av Bandeirantes, 3900 Ribeirão Preto, SP 14049-900, Brazil. wanda@fmrp.usp.br
authors.forename: Rosa Wanda
authors.initials: RW
authors.lastname: Diez-Garcia
authors.forename: Anete Araújo
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: de Sousa
authors.forename: Rossana Pacheco da Costa
authors.initials: RP
authors.lastname: Proença
authors.forename: Vania Aparecida
authors.initials: VA
authors.lastname: Leandro-Merhi
authors.forename: Edson Zangiacomi
authors.initials: EZ
authors.lastname: Martinez
mesh_terms: D001938:Brazil; D005521:Food Service, Hospital / Q000592:standards*; D019983:Guideline Adherence; D016304:Hospitals, Private / Q000592:standards*; D006779:Hospitals, Public / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D062407:Meals; D009752:Nutritional Status; D009753:Nutritive Value; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires