At MANNA, delivering medically tailored meals has always been about improving health as part of treatment plans for clients dealing with serious illness. Now, thanks to a growing partnership with HealthShare Exchange (HSX), we’re gaining new tools to better track that impact and enhance how we coordinate care.

HSX is a Community Information Exchange (CIE) that brings together data from health systems across the region. By securely sharing real-time health information between hospitals, physicians, and now community-based organizations like MANNA, this collaboration is helping MANNA deliver more coordinated care, respond to clients’ needs more efficiently, and document the health impact of our services.

How the Partnership Works

Through real-time notifications from HSX, we know when a client has been admitted to or discharged from a hospital, allowing us to pause and resume meal service at the right time. In addition, our Registered Dietitian Nutritionists (RDNs) can access HSX’s Clinical Data Repository to view clinical data such as lab values, medications, and hospital encounters.

Most recently, the MANNA Institute, our division for research and evaluation, worked with HSX’s data scientists to analyze client data for a pilot study. This partnership enabled us to build upon the results of our recently published study in BMC Nutrition by allowing us to analyze not only clinical outcomes but also clients’ hospitalization and emergency department (ED) utilization data.

What We’ve Learned So Far

Together, HSX and MANNA found that clients enrolled in the Medically Tailored Meal (MTM) program in 2022 experienced:

• 20% fewer hospitalizations in the year after starting the program compared to the year prior
• 19% fewer emergency department visits in the year after starting the program
• On average, a 5% decrease in Hemoglobin A1c (among those with diabetes) in the year following MANNA’s program
• An average 4% drop in BMI by the year following the program among those who started the program with a BMI in the overweight or obese category.

Why This Matters to MANNA – and to Our Clients

This partnership is about more than just data. It’s about documenting the value of community-based care and ensuring that our work is recognized as a vital part of treatment plans and the healthcare system.

“MANNA goes beyond meal delivery,” said Nicole Laverty, MANNA’s Chief Operating Officer. “We provide medical nutrition therapy and nutrition counseling to improve health and quality of life. The partnership with HSX helps us ensure that our medically tailored meals are aligned with our clients’ changing medical conditions and allows us to monitor progress and impact over time.”

We look forward to continuing this partnership with HSX to support even more robust health outcome assessments in the future. Because when healthcare teams and community organizations work together, the result is more connected care – and better support for the people we serve.