Abstract
Purpose: The purpose of this quality improvement project was to identify pediatric oncology patients receiving cancer treatment who were at risk for malnutrition and promote dietician support through referral and engagement.|Background: Cancer is the number one cause of death by disease in children. Malnutrition in children with cancer can lead to reduced growth and development, poor quality of life, and is identified to cause increased comorbidities, risk for infection, mortality, and cost of care. The utilization of standardized screening tools and increased dietician referral is expected to improve nutrition status in this population.|Sample/Setting: Pediatric oncology patients ages 0-18 undergoing cancer treatment and seen at an outpatient pediatric hematology/oncology clinic in the Midwest.|Methods: The Nutrition Screening Tool for Childhood Cancer (SCAN) was used for malnutrition risk assessment. Patients who were determined to be at risk for malnutrition with SCAN were referred to a dietician for consultation to evaluate and mitigate risk. Staff education, retrospective chart review, and post-study chart review were also completed.|Results: Two-hundred and thirty-three patient encounters qualified for screening, and 97 encounters were screened with SCAN. Twenty-two percent of patient encounters were evaluated by the dietician. SCAN implementation led to a 191% increase in dietician encounters in the clinic and a 125% increase in malnutrition identification in the ten-week period.|Conclusion: The results confirmed that the SCAN tool is a reasonable approach to identifying malnutrition and supported the addition of a dietician to the multidisciplinary team to improve patient outcomes for children with cancer.