Episode 39 - Mary Beth Feuling - From Data to Impact: Advancing Pediatric Nutrition in Hospital Systems

In this episode of Nutrition Pearls: the Podcast, co-hosts Nikki Misner and Bailey Koch speak with Mary Beth Feuling on how pediatric dietitians can use data, EMRs, and innovative tools to improve patient care and malnutrition identification at a systems level.

Mary Beth is a pediatric nutrition specialist with expertise in nutrition informatics, quality, and research, dedicated to advancing care for children across all ages. Over the past thirteen years as an advanced practice dietitian, she has led quality improvement and research initiatives at Children’s Wisconsin, mentoring dietitians to develop their research skills and improving pediatric nutrition care locally, nationally, and internationally.

Nutrition Pearls is supported by an educational grant from Mead Johnson Nutrition.

Resources:

Feuling MB, Hilbrands J, Hettich K, et al. Registered Dietitian Nutritionist consultation is associated with improvement in nutritional status in chronically ill children: a retrospective cohort study. J Acad Nutr Diet. 2025;(Epub ahead of print). doi:10.1016/j.jand.2025.05.011.

Hilbrands J, Feuling MB, Szabo A, et al. Nutrition screening in the pediatric intensive care unit: evaluation of an electronic medical record–based tool. Nutrients. 2023;15(21):4591. doi:10.3390/nu15214591.

Umentum B, Kim HJ, Adkins A, et al. Are dietitian recommendations followed? A descriptive study of pediatric hospitalized and ambulatory patients. J Hum Nutr Diet. 2024;(Epub ahead of print). doi:10.1111/jhn.13291.

Crouse J, Feuling MB, Winter T, Goday PS, Smith A. Electronic health record time-tracking provides real-time data to measure and benchmark dietitian productivity. J Hum Nutr Diet. 2024;37(1):105-110. doi:10.1111/jhn.13236.

Hilbrands J, Feuling MB, Szabo A, et al. Evaluation of an electronic medical record–based pediatric nutrition screening tool. J Hum Nutr Diet. 2023;36(5):1912-1921. doi:10.1111/jhn.13177.

Sparapani RA, Teng BQ, Hilbrands J, Pipkorn R, Beth FM, Goday PS. Novel pediatric height outlier detection methodology for electronic health records via machine learning with monotonic Bayesian additive regression trees. J Pediatr Gastroenterol Nutr. 2022;75(2):210-214.

Rusnak S, Charney P. Position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics: Nutrition informatics. J Acad Nutr Diet. 2019;119(8):1375-1382. doi:10.1016/j.jand.2019.06.004.

Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Quality Management

Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Malnutrition Care Score

Nutrition Care Process

Interoperability and Health Information Standards

Children’s Hospitals Solutions for Patient Safety

Six Domains of Health Care Quality

Produced by: Corey Irwin

NASPGHAN - Council for Pediatric Nutrition Professionals

cpnp@naspghan.org