Emory University Hospital Nutrition and Metabolic Support Service awarded the 2023 American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition’s Clinical Nutrition Team of Distinction Award

In 2023,  the American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (ASPEN) acknowledges the EUH Nutrition and Metabolic Support Service (NMSS) with its Clinical Nutrition Team Distinction Award for the second time (previously awarded in 2017). This award commends excellence in maintaining compliance with ASPEN’s national standards, guidelines, and values involving nutritional screening, evaluation, management, rehabilitation, risk analysis, training, assessment of therapeutic effectiveness, administration of specialized parenteral and enteral nutrition and tube feedings, and quality-driven original research.

Under the guidance of Thomas R. Ziegler, MD (Medicine/Endocrinology) and John R. Galloway, MD (General Surgery), the EUH NMSS has become one of the most high-volume programs of its type in the country, with an average of 40 to 50 inpatients per day and approximately 150 home parenteral nutrition (HPN) patients per week with a mixed variety of complex disease states involving intestinal failure and/or malnutrition, including short bowel syndrome, intestinal dysmotility, and critical illness.

From 1979 to the present day, the EUH NMSS has been multidisciplinary and has grown to now comprising of two medical directors, Drs. Galloway and Ziegler, a physician assistant, five clinical pharmacy specialists, one nutrition support pharmacy fellow, two clinical dieticians, and three registered nurse specialists. “We regularly collaborate on research with the departments of medicine and surgery, the nursing school, and other Emory groups,” says Galloway.

Since 1996, Dr. Ziegler has also led a variety of NIH-funded studies in nutrition support. Current investigations include three industry-funded studies in short bowel syndrome, including a phase III clinical trial, and multiple retrospective studies to identify potential gaps in care for patients requiring specialized nutrition support.

In 2021, the team’s PGY2 Nutrition Support pharmacy residency program, one of the oldest ASHP-accredited programs established in 1984, transitioned to a Nutrition Support Pharmacy Fellowship program with a clinical nutrition and research focus.  The Emory fellowship for PharmDs recently became the first and only program in the nation endorsed by ASPEN.