{"id":6035,"date":"2026-01-29T09:03:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T23:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/kilcoy\/uncategorized\/stars-therapeutic-meal-ordering"},"modified":"2026-01-29T09:03:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T23:03:08","slug":"stars-therapeutic-meal-ordering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/kilcoy\/news\/stars-therapeutic-meal-ordering","title":{"rendered":"Therapeutic meal ordering improves patient’s meal choices with a side of speech therapy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Therapeutic meal ordering improves patient’s meal choices with a side of speech therapy<\/h1>\n
\"Interprofessional

Interprofessional Clinical Assistant (IPCA) Jenny with some of the therapeutic meal ordering resources.<\/p><\/div>\n

Imagine you are patient in hospital after a significant injury that has impacted your ability to communicate. You\u2019re presented with many different options for breakfast, but you aren\u2019t able to remember them all and can\u2019t easily communicate what you like and dislike. You end up with scrambled eggs. Eventually, the other breakfast options aren\u2019t suggested anymore as everyone thinks you like eggs so you receive scrambled eggs, every single day for your hospital stay.<\/h4>\n

This is a real-life experience of a patient at STARS and informed a joint speech pathology and dietetics pilot project.<\/p>\n

STARS senior speech pathologist Lauren Wright explains how a new interprofessional clinical assistant (IPCA) role is addressing the issue for patients with a communications deficit.<\/p>\n

\u201cPatients with communication difficulties require additional time and support to complete functional everyday tasks, including meal ordering,\u201d Lauren said.<\/p>\n

\u201cDifficulty communicating choices and preferences can not only lessen patient autonomy and mealtime experience but also increase the risk of malnutrition.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe new IPCA roles provide dedicated time for therapeutic meal ordering support and communication therapy for patients with a communications deficit.\u201d<\/p>\n

IPCA Jenny Heller uses a variety of visual aids to assist patients to order their meals.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have pictures of all the menu options and other tools to help patients indicate yes or no to different choices,\u201d Jenny said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe IPCA role is not just about helping patients order their meals\u2014the meal ordering is used as an opportunity to provide speech therapy. I may get the patient to work on saying a word or writing a word from the menu, for example. We also use a picture of a particular food and ask patient question such as \u2018what does it rhyme with\u2019, \u2018what is the sound it starts with\u2019 and \u2018what does it make you think of\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

The response from patients and their families has been overwhelmingly positive.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany of the patients have had a life-changing injury or medical event so ensuring the receive something they like to eat while in hospital gives them back one small pleasure. Being able to do that while also progressing their speech therapy is so rewarding,\u201d Jenny said.<\/p>\n

Following the implementation of the pilot, all participating patients reported an increased confidence with communicating their preferences. Additionally, the number of patients that were rated as well-nourished also increased.<\/p>\n

The success of the pilot has resulted in therapeutic meal ordering becoming a permanent feature at STARS. It is believed the interprofessional initiative is the first of its kind in Australia.<\/p>\n

Funding for the original pilot was provided by the Metro North\u2019s Helix Support Program.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new interprofessional clinical assistant role is providing therapeutic meal ordering for patients at STARS with difficulties with communication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77,"featured_media":6036,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_searchwp_excluded":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,501,518],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-stars","category-metro-north-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/kilcoy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/kilcoy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/kilcoy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/kilcoy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/77"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/kilcoy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6035"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/kilcoy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6035\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6037,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/kilcoy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6035\/revisions\/6037"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/kilcoy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/kilcoy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/kilcoy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/kilcoy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}