Dietitian

American Addiction Centers•Milwaukee, WI

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Dietitian will provide ongoing Medical Nutrition Therapy (MNT) care for hospital inpatients, including screening, prioritizing, assessing, and recommending interventions. This role involves adapting workflow to patient load fluctuations, developing and implementing individualized nutrition plans based on expert assessment, and documenting MNT in the electronic medical record. The Dietitian will also prescribe and manage enteral and parenteral nutrition support, collaborate with physicians and pharmacy on specialized nutrition support, and manage Total Parental Nutrition (TPN) infusions. Additionally, the role involves prescribing therapeutic diets, oral nutrition supplements, and managing related orders, collaborating with food and nutrition services to ensure patient intake aligns with prescriptions, and developing patient-specific menus for complex dietary needs. The Dietitian will lead efforts to identify, treat, and prevent malnutrition, perform Nutrition Focused Physical Examinations, and provide education to patients and staff. This position also supports outpatient nutrition programs, precepts dietetic students and medical residents, and participates in interdisciplinary team rounds and care conferences. The role contributes to system-wide clinical initiatives, practice changes, and liaises between clinical nutrition and other departments to champion initiatives. Assistance to other sites may be required.

Requirements

Dietitian certification issued by the Commission of Dietetic Registration (CDR)
Dietitian (RD) registration with the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics
Licensure by the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IL only)
Certification by the Department of Safety and Professional Services (WI only)
Minimum of Bachelor's Degree (if CDR registration eligibility is obtained prior to January 1, 2024) or Minimum of Graduate Degree (master’s, practice doctorate, or doctoral) (if initial CDR registration is obtained on or after January 1, 2024)
Successful completion of Accreditation Council for Education in Nutrition and Dietetics (ACEND) accredited supervised practice program.
Didactic experience in clinical nutrition from an ACEND approved program.
Advanced knowledge in clinical nutrition and Nutrition Focused Physical Exams
Ability to respond to the needs of a diverse patient population.
Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
Excellent organization, decision-making, time management, and problem-solving skills

Responsibilities

Provides ongoing Medical Nutrition Therapy (MNT) care for entire hospital inpatient census, through screening, prioritizing, assessing, and recommending interventions.
Adapts daily workflow to accommodate fluctuations in patient load due to daily census variations, consults, acuity, staffing challenges.
Develops and implements a plan of care for patients based on an expert assessment of life cycle- and diagnosis-specific nutritional needs.
Documents medical nutrition therapy plan of care in the electronic medical record supporting system clinical documentation and coding standards to maximize reimbursement rates.
Prescribes enteral and parenteral nutrition support orders by assessing the patient and calculating macronutrients and/or micronutrients, fluid, and electrolytes.
Evaluates patient tolerance and effectiveness of formulas and manages initiation or modifications to enteral/parenteral regimen orders.
Demonstrates extensive knowledge of specialized nutrition support (parenteral and enteral) and triages issues and concerns through collaboration with physicians and pharmacy.
Constant, secure communication with system level Pharmacy Integrated Clinical Services (PICS) team to manage and order Total Parental Nutrition (TPN) infusions for critically ill patients in the hospital.
Prescribes orders for therapeutic diets, oral nutrition supplements, and nutrition support regimens, including vitamins/minerals, fluid management, and lab work as indicated within the scope of the Medical Nutrition Therapy (MNT) protocol.
Utilizes order-writing privileges to implement nutrition related orders.
Collaborates with Food and Nutrition patient services team to ensure patient intake aligns with nutrition prescription and interdisciplinary plan of care.
Partners with site patient services team to identify and recommend appropriate clinical nutrition formula and supplement substitutions during supply chain disruptions to reduce and eliminate significant disruptions to patient care.
Partners with physicians, nursing, and nutrition patient services to ensure diet restrictions, allergy restrictions, supplement preferences and tube feedings are consistent with patient needs and personal, religious, and cultural preferences.
Develops patient-specific menus for patients admitted with complex dietary needs (e.g., multiple food allergies, numerous diet restrictions, and/or low-use, high risk diet orders).
Leads efforts to identify, treat and prevent malnutrition.
Performs Nutrition Focused Physical Examinations of high-risk patients to evaluate the loss of specific muscles and subcutaneous body fat to determine the presence of and degree of malnutrition.
Communicates findings to the medical team through medical record documentation to ensure maximized reimbursement.
Provides medical nutrition therapy education to patients identified with moderate or severe malnutrition to improve patient outcomes and to positively impact inpatient readmission rates.
Routinely documents elements of the Global Malnutrition Composite Score (GMCS) for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Nutrition Electronic Quality Indicators.
Participates in Quality Assessment Performance Improvement (QAPI) efforts to ensure nutrition care is safe and effective for patients.
Maintains regulatory readiness.
Supports department clinical initiatives to ensure compliance with safety initiatives, policies, and procedures, DNV regulations, and department standards.
Identifies and documents billable nutrition diagnosis with supporting documentation.
May provide clinical support to various hospital-based outpatient medical destination programs (e.g., cancer center, transplant clinic, digestive health programs, bariatric, cardiac rehab, heart failure, etc.)
Enters charges for outpatient nutrition charge capture in electronic medical record.
Supports partnerships with local didactic programs by precepting dietetic graduate students in clinical nutrition and/or foodservice management.
Directs and monitors interns’ progress both daily and at designated touchpoints and provides feedback for growth and development.
Communicates regularly with didactic program coordinator.
Also, precepts medical residents and provides nutrition orientation as applicable.
Provides nutrition lectures to medical residents for internal medicine, trauma, NICU/Peds, and family practice, as applicable.
Collaborates routinely with discharge planners, home health, physicians, pharmacy, and other interdisciplinary teams to address the full scope of the system-established priority points protocol for inpatient care.
Participates in interdisciplinary team rounds, meetings, and care conferences to coordinate and collaborate on nutrition goals.
Assists with transition to home or outside facilities by partnering with Care Management and/or Home Health to coordinate home enteral and/or parenteral nutrition needs.
Provides medical nutrition therapy education to patients on prescribed diet, per established priority system, to improve patient knowledge/understanding of nutrition, diet therapy and compliance on prescribed diet.
Education is provided to inpatients, outpatients and family members through individual counseling and classes.
May provide nutrition in-services to teammates, as applicable.
Provides clinical input into system clinical nutrition initiatives and practice changes.
Participates in system subgroups/projects, as assigned, to develop and implement evidence-based nutrition practices, clinical initiatives and/or practice changes.
Partners with system patient services and clinical teams to deploy system changes and updates regarding CBORD, EPIC, menus, emergency preparedness, downtime processes, formulary, clinical procedures, and policies.
Liaisons between clinical nutrition and inpatient nursing and physicians to champion system clinical nutrition initiatives (e.g., new dysphagia standards, malnutrition coding practice changes, enteral nutrition equipment changes, malnutrition nurse screening changes, safety protocol changes, etc.)
Assists (via in-person or remote coverage) other sites throughout the State, as needed, to provide clinical nutrition coverage to assure equitable patient care.