What is in my Patient’s Pantry? Addressing Food Insecurity in Primary Care: A Quality Improvement Project.

Food insecurity (FI) has negative health effects throughout the lifespan, yet there is a disconnect between national recognition of FI as a health issue and FI screening in the clinical setting. The purpose of this project was to determine if an educational intervention increased knowledge of FI’s role on health, the screening and referral process, and using ICD-10 coding to document FI. A pretest-posttest design was used, sampling clinicians across five clinical sites. Participants received virtual education and completed a pre-, post-, and 3-month follow-up survey to measure knowledge, attitudes, and willingness to address FI issues. A retrospective ICD-10 coding report for FI was obtained to measure frequency of use per clinic site. Thirty-one clinicians completed the pre- and post-survey, and twelve clinicians completed all three time points. Participants’ knowledge of FI and knowledge of referral resources was significantly improved from the pre- to post-survey (p <0.001, p < 0.000 respectively). Clinicians showed a significant change in their intent to ask patients about FI (p < 0.000) and to refer patients to community food resources (p < 0.000); this remained at the 3-month follow-up (p < 0.001). There was not a significant change in the use of the ICD-10 code for FI throughout the measurement period. The results of this project support findings in the literature that a point-in-time educational training on FI could improvement clinicians’ knowledge, as well as their willingness to screen patients for FI and connect them to food resources.