"Food Security and its Impact on Hypertension in Urban Communities" by Lauren M. Nobriga

Date of Graduation

Fall 12-13-2024

Document Access

Project/Capstone - Global access

Degree Name

Master of Science in Nursing (MSN)

College/School

School of Nursing and Health Professions

First Advisor

Dr. Robert Patterson

Abstract

The Quality Improvement Team proposed an intervention to increase enrollment in the Food Security Program, a six-month initiative that provides vouchers redeemable for fruits and vegetables. Long-term impacts of this Program include an improved food economy and enhanced patient disease management autonomy. This project aimed to increase the percentage of eligible adult medicine clinic patients enrolled in the Food Security Program by 25%, or 11 patients per month, based on the mean enrollment for the first four months of the Program (May to August) of nine patients. The intervention was based on bi-monthly performance reports, making the goal include enrolling at least five patients. To achieve this, the QI Team implemented a comprehensive flyer in the adult medicine department of an urban clinic. The utilized Emergency Health Record (EHR), EPIC, was modified with a hypertension column to identify eligible patients. At the onset of the two-week intervention period, staff received 50 revised flyers. Upon completion, four flyers were delivered to patients. A database review demonstrated a 245% increase from the mean of five to 11 enrollments. After the first cycle, the QI Team debriefed with the end-users, who reported that the flyer was user-friendly. Limitations to this study included delayed enrollment into the Program due to insufficient staffing. Environmental barriers and individual workflow variation may contribute to low compliance with the intervention. Future recommendations for following QI Teams include emphasizing referrals over enrollments due to delays in the process, which made enrollment causation hard to identify.

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