The Food is Medicine Institute at Tufts University is collaborating with Kaiser Permanente to create the new Food is Medicine National Network of Excellence. 

Joining the effort are several other major healthcare organizations including Geisinger, Highmark Health, CVS Health, Elevance Health, Devoted Health and Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina.

WHY IT MATTERS

By offering programs such as medically-tailored meals, prescribing fresh produce and generally offering better nutrition education, hospitals and health systems can better address diet-related chronic medical conditions, the organizations say, and reduce down-the-line healthcare costs.

Tufts leaders say the new national network has been organized to coordinate various efforts across the country that integrate Food is Medicine, or FIM, interventions into healthcare. 

By harnessing the latest research and training to enhance patient care and education, the network will focus on three priorities:

• Developing frameworks to assess FIM interventions and measuring health outcomes and costs.
• Sharing insights and identifying opportunities to optimize program design and delivery.
• Promoting the efficacy of FIM through engagement with the healthcare sector, policymakers and the public. 

"Kaiser Permanente has been testing Food is Medicine programs for several years," Pamela Schwartz, executive director of community health for the organization, said in the announcement. "We’re excited by their potential to improve health. That’s why we’re expanding these efforts and using our findings to help other healthcare organizations do the same."

THE LARGER TREND

Tufts first launched its Food is Medicine Institute back in 2023, with a key focus being the integration of nutrition security screening tools into the electronic health record at Tufts Medical Center. Another goal was to study how food and nutrition can support maternal and child health equity.

For example, Tufts has been researching produce prescription programs that leverage healthy food to treat diet-related diseases. As Ronit Ridberg, a research assistant professor at its FIM Institute, explained to Salon last month, the critical link is healthcare delivery. 

FIM interventions are "a referral from your primary care provider or another healthcare provider, and it’s really tied to a health condition that’s related to diet," Ridberg said. FIM is "more about food and nutrition support being tied to the health system."

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who was nominated to lead the U.S. Health and Human Services – and this week cleared a Senate Finance Committee vote, and could be headed for confirmation – has said nutrition and food quality are a cornerstone of his many healthcare beliefs.

When asked during a confirmation hearing in January about integrating nutrition-based interventions into programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, he said there were many ways to do that, including improving school lunches through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and better consumer education.

ON THE RECORD

"Each year, suboptimal diets and food insecurity cause more than 500,000 deaths and cost the U.S. economy $1.1 trillion in healthcare and lost productivity," said Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, a cardiologist and the director of Tufts' Food is Medicine Institute, in a statement about the new network. "By working together, we can scale evidence-based nutritional interventions that are driving change, improving health and reducing disparities."

Andrea Fox is senior editor of Healthcare IT News.
Email: afox@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.