As I watched family members age, each went through a very different process of managing their health in their final years. Some spent time in an assisted living facility, some in a nursing home, and one spent her remaining time at home with the support of home health services. Continue reading
Author Archives: Leslie Scotland-Stewart
Food: A Simple Solution to a Complex Health Care Problem
Here’s a startling fact about rising health care costs in the US: fifty percent of total costs can be directly linked to just five percent of the total US patient population. These patients, commonly referred to as high-utilizers or super-utilizers, tend to have complex medical needs and, often, limited resources. In fact, they look a lot like the clients we see at Project Angel Heart. Continue reading
Hospitals Use Cutting-Edge Food as Medicine Programs
According to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 60 percent of patients entering the hospital are malnourished.[1] These patients have longer inpatients stays and higher health care costs than their well-nourished counterparts.
Health care organizations are looking for creative solutions to this problem, and a number of exciting collaborations, pilot programs, and research studies throughout the country are providing nutrition as part of health care treatment plans. At Project Angel Heart, we’re playing our part by delivering medically tailored meals- but we’re not the only ones using food as medicine. Here are two more projects using nutrition to produce huge improvements in the health of chronically ill individuals: Continue reading
How My “Why” Brought Me to Project Angel Heart
Six months ago, I was hired at Project Angel Heart to help build a cutting-edge program and bring food as medicine to healthcare in Colorado in a bigger way. Through the Meals for Care Transitions program, my job is to work with health care providers to deliver medically modified, made-from-scratch meals to patients as part of their treatment in managing chronic disease.
As I look back on the path that led me to this organization, I know that there was a bigger purpose and cause that brought me to this role. Continue reading
