A study on the features of nutrition information system of hospitals affiliated to Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences

Today, the Hospital Information System (HIS) has become an essential part of the diagnostic and therapeutic processes of health care professionals. The Nutrition Decision Support System (NDSS) as a subsystem of HIS plays an important role in supporting clinical decision making and food policies.

The current study was cross-sectional and descriptive. The research population includes the nutrition information system of the HIS pertaining to Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences in 2021. The systems had been designed by Tirajeh Rayaneh Company, Rayavaran and Tarasheh Hushmand Novin. The data was collected using a checklist including 21 criteria that distributed among 20 nutritionists through visiting 19 affiliated hospitals of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences. We used content validity and test-retest method for specifying validity and reliability of the checklist. Also, data analysis performed through using SPSS 19 software.

Findings indicated that the designed nutrition information systems did not have 80% of the main criteria including the ability to connect to the electronic medical record; the ability to provide warnings when drug-food interactions occur; and to provide food menus based on the patient’s treatment conditions.

Considering the importance of nutrition information system, it is necessary to equip our hospitals with this software system as a subsystem of HIS. The nutrition information system is a main solution to reduce and prevent patients’ exposure to nutritional problems and drug-food interactions. It causes to reduce medical errors and improve the quality of medical care.