The Medically Tailored Meal Intervention
The Food is Medicine Coalition’s Clinical Committee, overseen by our Advisory Board, has issued guidelines based on almost 40 years of experience developing the science of medically tailoring meals. Our Clinical Committee is made up of Registered Dietitian Nutritionists, who are experts in treating serious illness with nutrition.
Julia Choi, God’s Love We Deliver
what is a medically tailored meal?
Medically tailored meals are delivered to individuals living with severe, complex and chronic illness through a referral from a medical professional or healthcare plan. Meal plans are tailored to the medical needs of the recipient by a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist (RDN), and are designed to improve health outcomes, lower cost of care and increase patient satisfaction.
The History of Medically Tailored Meals
Medically tailored meal providers began nearly 40 years ago as a community, volunteer response to the AIDS pandemic. Medically tailored meals (MTM) were conceived to combat wasting, improve side effects, and bring dignity to the lives of AIDS patients when no other treatments were available. When antiretrovirals became available as a treatment, the MTM service evolved to meet the new medical and nutrition demands of clients and practice expanded to meet the needs of those with additional illnesses like cancer, cardiovascular disease, renal failure and more. Credentialed Registered Dietitian Nutritionists have been foundational to the intervention since the beginning, ensuring the procedure conforms to nutrition practice standards and evidence-based nutrition science.
Medically Tailored Meals Nutrition Standards
The Food is Medicine Coalition’s Clinical Committee (FIMC), overseen by the FIMC Advisory Board, has issued guidelines based decades of experience developing the science of medically tailoring meals. The Clinical Committee is made up of Registered Dietitian Nutritionists, who are experts in treating serious illness with nutrition. Please see the Medically Tailored Meal Nutrition Standards.
Who needs a medically tailored meal?
People living with serious illnesses benefit from eating foods that are specifically designed for their diagnosis, as well as the additional complications that come with that illness (i.e. treatment side effects and comorbidities). Medically tailored meals help the “sickest of the sick” in our communities, or the 5% of patients that generate 50% of healthcare costs. In the pyramid to the right you can see this illustrated. We operate at the top of the pyramid in the treatment spectrum of food and nutrition services and, as such, we often function in the healthcare space as a part of a patient’s treatment plan.
Why Is our approach unique?
A medically tailored meal, as defined by the Food is Medicine Coalition, does not simply mean putting someone on a diet. Our clients’ medical lives are complex - many are living with multiple serious illnesses at once - and they require an equally complex nutrition intervention. This is why our model requires an assessment by a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist who then tailors the meal plan to the unique needs of the individual. In our over 30 years of experience working with this population, we have developed a sophisticated set of food and nutrition standards, founded in research, that have been shown to result in better health outcomes, lower healthcare costs, and improved patient satisfaction.