In an article posted earlier this year on the Cambro blog, the author describes how home- delivered meal programs, like our home-delivered meal program at God’s Love, reduce hospital readmissions rates. Although God’s Love has been making this argument since our inception in the 1980’s, it is refreshing to see others reinforce our research and our work.
As stated in the article, by delivering a nutritious meal to a client’s home, they are able to stay healthy and, therefore, stay out of the hospital. This means the services we provide here at God’s Love are beneficial for two essential reasons: 1.) Our services result in better health outcomes for our clients resulting in less time spent in the hospital, which 2.) Lowers health care costs.
Data provided in the article affirms our claims of better health outcomes and lower healthcare costs. In a six-month pilot study in Florida, patients who received home-delivered meals had 17% readmission rates; far lower than the 28% readmission rate experienced by clients not receiving the home-delivered meals. If this program was expanded, the researchers in the study estimated they could save the hospital system 1.5 million dollars annually.
Currently, there is no dedicated funding source for medically-tailored home delivered meals, except for people living with HIV(PLWH). Although PLWH are in need of this service, so are millions of other people living with serious illnesses. If one hospital system could save 1.5 million dollars a year using a home-delivered meal service, imagine how much money organizations like God’s Love could save all hospitals in the country, and more importantly, how many people could benefit from these critical services.
Currently, our organization leads the Food Is Medicine Coalition. It is the Coalition’s goal to fund food and nutritional services for people with serious illnesses. If you would like to learn more about the Food Is Medicine Coalition visit our webpage or follow us on twitter @fimcoalition.