Practicalities of Using the Nutrition Care Process in Research

We thank Ms. McCarthy for her comments1 in response to our recently published article2 and would like to express strong agreement that adherence to the standardized language and systematic processes of the Nutrition Care Process and Terminology (NCPT) is a vital for the comparability of research findings and advancement of nutrition outcomes research. We disagree that the inclusion of screening in our algorithmic process constitutes the addition of a step to the NCP. The eNCPT Nutrition Terminology Reference Manual (eNCPT) states that “patients/clients enter nutrition assessment, the first step of the NCP, through screening, surveillance systems data, and/or referral, all of which are outside of the NCP.”3 We noted that the screening portion of the algorithm was not a part of the NCP in the final row of our flowchart description of the algorithm (Figure 1 in the original article2), yet the patients in the study must have a point of entry into the NCP.
Source: Journal of Renal Nutrition - Category: Urology & Nephrology Authors: Tags: Letter to the Editor Source Type: research