COMPUTER USE BY NUTRITION SERVICES DEPARTMENTS IN CANADIAN HOSPITALS

The objectives of the present study were to 1) determine the status of computer use by nutrition services departments in Canadian hospitals, 2) obtain specific details about the nature and capabilities of these computer systems and 3) compare the results of a standard One-Day foo d record analysis generated by the different programs reportedly in us e. A 38-item questionnaire and a standard one-day food record were moi led to all managers of nutrition services departments of Canadian hosp itals with >100 beds. The response rate was 42% and more than one-half of the hospitals [54%, 53%, 56%] reported using computers for Patient /Clinical Care (P/CC), Staff Administration (Admin) and Food productio n Management (FPM), respectively. Fifty-eight per tent of respondents were using smaller stand-alone, 30% larger commerically available and 18% internal/custom designed systems. There was general agreement amon g the 41 hospitals with computational analysis capabilities on total e nergy and quantities of fat, protein, carbohydrate, cholesterol, sodiu m and fibre in the standard one-day food record analysis. In conclusio n, 1) the use of computers for nutrition services related functions ha s increased substantially within the lost decade, 2) the majority of s oftware packages in use were the smaller stand-alone commercial variet y, 3) 20% of hospitals [41 of 209 respondents] were using computers ca pable of diet computation analysis at the time of the survey.