What is in my Patient’s Pantry? Addressing Food Insecurity in Primary Care: A Quality Improvement Project.

Doctoral Candidate Name: Rachel Koontz
Program: Doctor of Nursing Practice
Defense Date and Time: March 30, 2021 – 9:00 AM
Defense Location: Virtual via Zoom: Meeting ID: 949 1321 6912 Phone: +1 929 205 6099
Committee chair’s Name: Dr. Katie Shue-McGuffin
Committee Members: Dr. Charlene Whitaker-Brown, Dr. Xiaoxia Newton, Dr. Andrew Nance
Abstract:

Food insecurity (FI) has negative health effects throughout the lifespan, yet there is a disconnect between national recognition of FI as a health issue and FI screening in the clinical setting. The purpose of this project was to determine if an educational intervention increased knowledge of FI’s role on health, the screening and referral process, and using ICD-10 coding to document FI. A pretest-posttest design was used, sampling clinicians across five clinical sites. Participants received virtual education and completed a pre-, post-, and 3-month follow-up survey to measure knowledge, attitudes, and willingness to address FI issues. A retrospective ICD-10 coding report for FI was obtained to measure frequency of use per clinic site. Thirty-one clinicians completed the pre- and post-survey, and twelve clinicians completed all three time points. Participants’ knowledge of FI and knowledge of referral resources was significantly improved from the pre- to post-survey (p