Recognizing Malnutrition Awareness Week

Floor Speech

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Mrs. TORRES. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize this week as Malnutrition Awareness Week.

Every 60 seconds, 10 hospitalized patients with malnutrition go undiagnosed, with the majority of these individuals being older adults. Malnutrition among seniors and older adults can lead to a greater risk of chronic disease, frailty, disability and increases in healthcare costs.

Malnutrition also disproportionately impacts minorities who are often managing comorbid chronic diseases. In my home district, 80 percent of the constituents I represent are of Hispanic background. It is of great concern to hear that malnutrition is more than twice as common among low-income older adult Latino households.

We cannot advance malnutrition care and promote improved patient recovery if we do not align the identification of and interventions for malnutrition with healthcare quality incentive programs.

The great news is that there are common-sense solutions that can close this gap in care now.

We can first begin by measuring the scope of the problem. Sadly, we currently don't know the full extent of the malnutrition problems plaguing our senior population. To change this, we can add screening measures for malnutrition to the national health surveys of older adults and implement national key health indicators and Healthy People 2030 goals for older Americans. Doing something as simple as adding malnutrition measures will help shape public health programs and better guide healthcare professionals as they address serious health conditions.

Another simple change we can make is adding older adult malnutrition to national dietary guidelines.

We cannot expect older adults and their families to take steps to address malnutrition if we do not give them the tools to identify the problem. We must meet older Americans half way so that families can make appropriate interventions for their unique conditions and circumstances. Therefore, I call on HHS and USDA to include dietary guidance for the prevention and treatment of older adult malnutrition and the closely aligned problem of age-related sarcopenia listed in the 2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

Lastly, malnutrition should be interweaved into healthcare incentive programs. A patient's nutrition status is rarely evaluated and managed as individuals transition across care settings. I therefore urge the CMS to include malnutrition electronic clinical quality measures in Medicare quality programs as well as in measures related to malnutrition in care transition programs. This will help reduce hospital readmission rates and improve transitional care for seniors in the long run.

Increasing awareness of nutrition's role on patient recovery and implementing these measurable changes will help educate healthcare professionals and families which will result in helping seniors live healthy and independent lives.

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