A concise summary detailing what this focus area is, why it matters, and who it is designed to help.
Food Is Medicine (Clinical Integration)
Design and evaluate produce prescriptions, medically tailored meals, and nutrition therapy pathways embedded in care—measuring clinical and economic impact.
Overview
Food Is Medicine integrates nutrition services directly into care pathways to improve outcomes for patients with diet-related conditions. We support the design, implementation, and rigorous evaluation of programs such as produce prescriptions, medically tailored meals (MTMs), and structured nutrition therapy models—aligned to real clinical workflows and referral pathways. Our work connects program operations with robust measurement and reporting so health systems and partners can understand effectiveness, feasibility, and value—and scale what works responsibly.
Solutions Used
A list of methods and capabilities utilized to execute the work and achieve the objectives within this focus area.
- Food Is Medicine Program Design & Evaluation — To translate evidence into practical models of care and define what success looks like clinically and operationally.
- Study Protocols & Trial Design — To design fit-for-purpose studies, including observational designs and pragmatic evaluations when relevant.
- Program Evaluation & Impact Measurement — To quantify outcomes, implementation performance, and ROI with decision-ready reporting.
- Data Science & Statistics — To analyze clinical, program, and outcomes data, including heterogeneity and uncertainty.
- Digital Decision Support — To build dashboards, reporting tools, and decision aids for care teams and stakeholders.
- Clinical, Data & AI Governance (Ethics, GDPR & Risk) — To ensure appropriate governance when work involves human data, consent, privacy, and responsible analytics.
Key Measures
The specific clinical, economic, and programmatic indicators we track to quantify success and validate impact.
Depending on the question and setting, key measures may include:
- Clinical Outcomes: HbA1c, blood pressure, LDL-C, weight/adiposity, and condition-specific biomarkers (as relevant).
- Reach & Targeting: screening rates, eligibility identification, referral completion, enrollment, retention.
- Implementation Performance: time-to-service, fidelity to protocols, delivery consistency, operational bottlenecks.
- Utilization & Cost: ED visits/hospitalizations (where available), resource use, total cost of care, program costs, ROI/cost-effectiveness.
- Patient Experience & PROs: satisfaction, quality of life, symptom burden, acceptability (patient-reported outcomes).
- Nutrition & Access: diet quality indicators (as measurable), food security and access barriers
Equity: subgroup performance and disparities across key populations and settings
Related Focus Areas
Complementary health domains, populations, and settings that frequently intersect with this area of expertise.
