Doctor-written food
prescriptions refer patients to Kroger Health dietitians
Russell Redman 1 | Feb 03, 2020
The Kroger Co.
is piloting a program in which physicians can write “food prescriptions” that
patients fill at a local store under the guidance of a Kroger Health
professional.
Under the test,
launched in the spring and now in its next phase, a Cincinnati doctor makes
dietary recommendations to diabetes patients and directs them to a nutrition
expert at a Kroger supermarket in Forest Park, Ohio, said Kroger Health
registered dietitian Bridget Wojciak, RDN/LD. At the store, a dietitian provides
personal nutrition counseling and food suggestions to help the patient better
manage the disease, in line with the doctor’s orders.
“Right now,
we're in pilot with a local Cincinnati physician offering holistic care for
patients with diabetes. As part of that program, it includes a nutrition
prescription, which is fulfilled at a Kroger store,” Wojciak said. “Upon
successful completion of this pilot, we have plans for rapid expansion,
with a vision of filling more nutrition prescriptions than we do
prescription for medication.”
The food
prescription is written, not electronic as with medications, according to
Wojciak. Essentially, the script serves as a referral to a Kroger Health
dietitian, who then performs an evaluation, which she described as a “total
review.”
“It includes
learning how to use the OptUP app, a personalized nutrition assessment and understanding
patient lifestyle concerns around nutrition,” Wojciak explained. “Then that
dietitian provides personalized food recommendations that can be fulfilled by
nutrition team member in-store.”
Kroger’s
free OptUP mobile app, rolled out in 2018, provides
customer’s with a score indicating a product’s nutritional and/or health
attributes based on nationally recognized dietary guidelines enhanced by Kroger
Health dietitians.
Wojciak noted
that the food prescription concept arose from the need to ensure the primary
care team has input into patients’ diets and the nutritional guidance they
receive is clear and easy to follow.
“When we say
‘food is medicine,’ we want to make clear that it very much still involves the
holistic health care team and it still involves primary care,” she said. “We
find that a lot of physicians give difficult-to-follow nutrition advice — along
the lines of ‘You should improve your diet’ or ‘You should eat better.’ And
that becomes very difficult for a patient to understand and implement. So a
nutrition prescription is the strategic way to fill the gap between the
physician's guidance and the actual products that will yield health benefits.”
Recommendations
are made for specific food items and customized to the patient’s medical
condition and additional information collected during the visit with the
dietitian. Those receiving the prescriptions are just handed a shopping list,
Wojciak pointed out.
“It’s much more
comprehensive than that. Most people, even when given a list of foods, don't
necessarily know how to make them, what to do with them, how to store them and
how to make it fit into their lifestyle to actually generate the behavior
change needed to improve their health. So that's why we incorporated a dietitian
into the workflow,” she explained. “When you work with a registered dietitian
with a nutrition prescription, it gives you personalized advice, not only based
on your health condition but also on your lifestyle, the number of people in
your household, your budget, how comfortable you are with cooking — any factor
that would contribute to the way that you eat.”
Going forward,
Kroger Health expects to extend the food prescriptions to other health
conditions and diseases states at more stores, based on the results of the
pilot.
“The vision is
that it's not limited to primary care. Any physician can make a referral to a
nutrition prescription at the expansion of the program,” said Wojciak.
Other health
conditions that could be addressed by the program include heart disease and
cancer. Kroger Health also envisions including pharmacists, nurse practitioners
and other health professionals.
“Food just as
important in preventing disease as it is in treating it. In the pilot, we're
focusing on those with diabetes, but ‘food is medicine’ can be applied to
anyone no matter where they are in their health and wellness journey,” Wojciak
said. “Any medical condition could benefit from changes in diet and nutrition.
But we encourage people to think of it more broadly and, in the future, also on
the preventative side as well as the treatment side.”
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