Required Qualification:

• Bachelor’s degree in Food and Nutrition, Dietetics, Food Systems, or related field.
• Minimum one year of medical and nutrition related experience.
• Registered Dietician, Certified School Food Service Supervisor is an added advantage.

Other Selection Criteria (skills, knowledge and experience):

• Knowledge of the Nutrition Care Process and ability to apply all steps.
• Comprehensive knowledge, application of medical nutrition therapy, human behavior and techniques for effecting behavior change.
• Comprehensive knowledge and application of nutrition support services.
• Critical thinking to integrate facts, informed opinions, active listening, and observations.
• Decision making, problem solving and collaboration.
• Excellent counseling skills and ability to relate to a multi-ethnic community and varied learning levels.
• Strong interpersonal skills to establish productive working relationships with multidisciplinary team and support services.
• Ability to communicate effectively in both written and verbal form to patients, pubic, company staff, and physicians.
• Ability to organize tasks and function independently.
• Ability to counsel and motivate others, as individuals and as a group.
• General knowledge of nutrient analysis, word processing, spreadsheet, and professional presentation software.

Reports Directly to:          

Medical Consultant

Position Summary:

The Nutritionist provides nutrition consultation and education for patients and their families who are screened at nutrition risk, identified with nutrition risk, and/or referred by physicians or other healthcare providers for nutrition-related problems, chronic disease management, management of nutrition support, to meet regulatory requirements, or for prevention and wellness. The post-holder will ensure that the patient’s nutrition needs are being met, including when nutrition support initiation and/or management is necessary, during patient care, medical appointments, etc. Ultimately, your work will border down to the application of the Nutrition Care Process (NCP) including completion of the nutrition assessment, determination of the nutrition diagnosis, developing and implementing evidence-based nutrition intervention(s), and monitoring and evaluating the patient’s progress, and communicating the nutrition care plan with other members of the care team by effective verbal and written communication.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

Nutrition Assessment

• Conducts a nutrition assessment when warranted by a patient’s needs or conditions, or warranted by a regulatory requirement.
• Selects assessment tools and procedures (matching the assessment method to the situation) and applies assessment tools in valid and reliable ways.
• Reviews dietary intake for factors that affect health conditions and nutritional risk.
• Utilizes medical history, laboratory data, drug profile, and diet history to evaluate for nutrition-related consequences.
• Performs nutrition focused physical exam (NFPE) during assessments on patients to determine risk and/or degree of malnutrition when indicated.
• Evaluates psychosocial, functional, and behavioral factors related to food access, selection, preparation; physical activity; and understanding of health condition.
• Evaluates patient and family’s knowledge, readiness to learn, and potential for changing behaviors.
• Organizes and categorizes the data in a meaningful framework that is related to nutrition problems.
• Determines when a problem requires further medical consultation or referral to another provider or service.

Nutrition Diagnosis

• Finds patterns and relationships among the data and possible causes for the nutrition problem.
• Prioritizes the relative importance of nutrition problems for optimal patient health, recovery from illness, management of chronic disease, or disease prevention.
• Documents the nutrition diagnostic statement in PES (problem, etiology, and signs/symptom) and provides supporting evidence within the progress note.

Nutrition Intervention

• Formulates and determines a plan of action that is focused on the etiology of the problem and known to be effective based on best current knowledge of evidence from Evidence-Based Nutrition Practice Guidelines.
• Provides specialized nutrition care/support to chronically ill, acutely ill, and/or critically ill patient populations and educates patients as appropriate.
• Assesses educational needs and provides nutrition counseling based on individual needs, including nutrient requirements, knowledge and abilities, and medical, economic, and social situation.
• Evaluates achievement of learning objectives by the patient and/or family as well as provides appropriate follow-up in accordance with the patient’s treatment goals, referring patients for community or home health services as appropriate.
• Provides appropriate follow-up in accordance with the patient’s treatment goals; transitions care, through referral, to other nutrition professionals when appropriate.

Nutrition Monitoring and Evaluation

• Utilizes monitoring and evaluation techniques that consider the patient’s nutrition needs as well as cultural, religious, and ethnic concerns.
• Monitors patient’s tolerance to treatment modalities and progress through checking patient understanding and compliance with plan; determines whether the intervention is being implemented as prescribed; provides evidence that the plan/intervention strategy is or is not changing patient behavior or status; identifies other positive or negative outcomes; gathers information indicating reasons for lack of progress; and supports conclusions with evidence.
• Measures outcomes through selecting outcome indicators relevant to the nutrition diagnosis, and outcomes and quality management goals and use of standardized indicators.
• Evaluates the effectiveness and measures progress toward outcomes of nutrition interventions.
• Evaluates outcomes by comparing current findings with previous status, intervention goals, and/or reference standards.

Community Outreach

• Develops and teaches nutrition curriculum for community outreach programs as part of the company marketing strategies.
• Participates in community projects as needed and assigned.

Performance Improvement

• Uses trends in patient satisfaction, effectiveness of therapy and education to implement change to improve personal and organizational performance.
• Participates in and/or initiates continuous quality improvement activities for nutrition service line.
• Participates in planning and developing nutrition-related policies, procedures, and goals.
• Conducts in-services and education presentations to the organization’s staff.
• Assists in developing and revising patient education materials, clinical practice guidelines and protocols.
• Supports and promotes the organization’s infection control, safety, risk management, and customer/guest relations programmes.