Development and Evaluation of a Global Malnutrition Composite Score

Current nutrition assessment practice: A 2022 survey

“…For example, the Global Malnutrition Composite Score (GMCS) has been approved for use in the Inpatient Quality Reporting system for US hospitals starting in 2024, and standardized approaches to nutrition assessment will contribute to an accurate data set for this quality measure. 21…”

“…3 Hospitals should implement a comprehensive continuous quality improvement plan for improving malnutrition screening, assessment, documentation, intervention(s), and coding, especially now that the GMCS has been approved for use. 21 Respondents also estimated the percentage of patients with malnutrition for whom there were appropriate nutrition intervention orders, as determined by the survey respondent. They reported that in those patients who were assessed to have malnutrition, only 60%-75% of adults and 55%-80% of pediatric patients had appropriate nutrition interventions ordered.…”

Nutrition Security at the Intersection of Health Equity and Quality Care

“…29 The GMCS is a composite measure that represents hospitals' performance based on the summation of the key steps in the nutrition care process and workflow (malnutrition screening, nutrition assessment, and development of a nutrition care plan by a registered dietitian nutritionist [RDN], and documentation of diagnosis). 30 These steps address nutrition security by helping to identify and intervene for specific causes of malnutrition, whether related to disease or medical condition or limited access to nutritious food. The GMCS is already endorsed by the National Quality Forum and is supported by more than 100 hospitals nationwide that have adopted malnutrition quality measures as part of the Malnutrition Quality Improvement Initiative Learning Collaborative.…”

Advancing Health Equity through Malnutrition Quality Measurement Roundtable: Practice Applications

“…To begin the conversation, participants were presented with Figure 1, which illustrates an optimal pathway for addressing nutrition and food insecurity risk from a community perspective. The pathway centers around the use of the Global Malnutrition Composite Score (GMCS)-an electronic clinical quality measure developed by Avalere Health and stewarded by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics for use in the inpatient setting 20 -and it accounts for the nutrition and food insecurity risk factors that are known to contribute to health disparities. Quality measurement is an important tool in health care that enables providers to measure or quantify and track improvement in health care processes, outcomes, and other aspects of care.…”