Pediatric Dietitian - Registered (40 Hours a Week / Days)

American Addiction Centers

3d•$31 - $46•Hybrid

About The Position

The Pediatric Dietitian - Registered will provide ongoing Medical Nutrition Therapy (MNT) care for hospital inpatients. This role involves screening, prioritizing, assessing, and recommending interventions, adapting workflow to patient load fluctuations, and developing individualized nutrition plans of care based on life cycle and diagnosis-specific needs. Responsibilities include reviewing medical history, laboratory data, conducting patient interviews, and performing physical examinations to determine nutritional status. The dietitian will prescribe enteral and parenteral nutrition support, evaluate formula tolerance, and manage regimen orders, collaborating with physicians and pharmacy. They will also prescribe therapeutic diets, oral nutrition supplements, and manage related orders, ensuring alignment with patient intake and interdisciplinary plans. This role is crucial in identifying, treating, and preventing malnutrition through Nutrition Focused Physical Examinations and patient education, contributing to improved patient outcomes and reduced readmission rates. The position also involves documenting for quality indicators, maintaining regulatory readiness, and potentially providing clinical support to outpatient programs. Additionally, the dietitian will precept dietetic graduate students and medical residents, providing nutrition lectures and orientation. Collaboration with discharge planners, home health, physicians, and other interdisciplinary teams is essential for coordinating care transitions and home nutrition needs. The role includes providing medical nutrition therapy education to patients and families, participating in system clinical nutrition initiatives, and liaising between clinical nutrition and other medical teams to champion system initiatives. Assistance may be required at other sites to ensure equitable patient care.

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.
Develops and implements a plan of care for patients based on an expert assessment of life cycle- and diagnosis-specific nutritional needs.
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.
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.
Collaborates with Food and Nutrition patient services team to ensure patient intake aligns with nutrition prescription and interdisciplinary plan of care.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.