Pediatric Nutritional Services

Good nutrition is the first line of defense against numerous childhood diseases and is a crucial part in child growth and brain development. Now thanks to the Paso Del Norte Health Foundation, Centro San Vicente has the funding to integrate nutritional services into the clinical setting through a grant designed specifically for model development and direct clinical system change.

The program will modify clinical systems and policies for the integration nutritional services for children ages 6 and older in such specific areas as weight assessment and monitoring, healthy lifestyle promotion and patient treatment. This program will also address screening procedures for obesity, and the importance of tracking childhood obesity data, including nutritional intake, calculating, plotting BMI data and identifying obesity-related comorbidities.

Primary care is the ideal setting in which to address obesity and promote healthy eating and active living. It is readily accessible to the general population and patients are often familiar with the primary care team. However, numerous barriers exist to the provision of behavioral health counseling by PCPs. This includes practitioner's lack of time, skills, resources, and reimbursement, as well as competing demands of the many other recommended preventive services that are available to them. This program is designed to eliminate the barriers our providers face to delivering nutritional services in a clinical setting.