Output details

Supporting Visual Assessment of Food and Nutrient Intake in a Clinical Care Setting

The toll of malnutrition on healthcare costs is estimated to exceed £7.3 billion per year half of which is expended on those aged 65 years and over (Age Concern, 2006). Funded by the ESRC through the New Dynamics of Ageing cross council research programme, ‘mappmal’ aimed to redesign the hospital food service for vulnerable older patients to reduce malnutrition. As part of the wider redesign, the multi-disciplinary research team identified a need to accurately and timeously measure food and nutrient intake of patients in order to identify and monitor patients at risk of malnutrition. This paper describes the design and validation of the tool I designed for computer assisted visual assessment of food intake. The visual assessment tool is one component of a prototype food and nutritional management system (www.hospitalfoodie.com) that resulted from the research project. As designer and researcher I worked closely with sociologists to understand and map current food preparation and mealtimes through: interviews with a ‘food family’ (FF) of older people, hospital catering and clinical staff, and ethnographic observations of food preparation and mealtimes. These maps were validated by the FF at co-design workshops alongside activities designed to gather requirements for nutrition monitoring. The designer undertook an audit of possible means of measuring and recording food intake, including novel technologies from dietetics and other environments. Following synthesis of the outputs of these activities, a range of concepts for nutrition monitoring were developed and evaluated by the FF. A functional prototype of the chosen tool was created by the computer scientist and validated for accuracy by the dietitian. An interactive exhibition of the system was displayed at conferences for further feedback from relevant professionals (dietetics, catering, geriatrics, gerontology, design). To date the research has been presented internationally at conferences (Sweden, USA) and in two journal papers (design, health).