From Prescription to Plate: Unlocking Nourishing Food in Hospitals and Beyond (Invite only)

Integrating food and nutrition into health care requires meeting people where they are and activating multiple points along the care continuum. Ensuring that people receive nourishing food, both to prevent diet-related chronic disease and as an integral part of their care journey, is essential to advancing long-term health. Hospitals, a critical touchpoint for patients and families, are emerging as leaders in this work, increasingly recognizing food as a clinical tool, embedding nutrition support into care pathways and leveraging community presence to address food-related health needs at scale. Not only is it imperative to integrate nourishing food into hospital care, but the broader health system must also find ways to reach people where they work, live, and play, establishing food as health across the care continuum to prevent the onset and progression of diet-related chronic disease, a key driver of hospital admissions in the US. This session will address these upstream and downstream intervention points, exploring what it will take to build the policy, financial, and institutional infrastructure to make food a reliable, reimbursable part of health care across the continuum.