BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Rehabil. Sci.
Sec. Rehabilitation Engineering
Volume 6 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fresc.2025.1553818
This article is part of the Research TopicEnsuring Public Health: The Active Role of Healthcare ProfessionalsView all 25 articles
Effectiveness and Cost Savings of Employing Speech Therapists in a Home Artificial Nutrition Unit
Provisionally accepted
Alice Di Battista*
Ylenia Di GiancaterinoLucia Di PalmaClaudia NunziataLoredana GigliAntonio VivenzioAlessandra Matano- Azienda Sanitaria Locale Roma 3, Rome, Italy
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The Home Artificial Nutrition Unit (HANU) deals with both dysphagic patients receiving enteral and parenteral nutrition and patients who can eat orally with restrictions. In Lazio Region, the HANU prescribes watergels and thickeners, supplied by the National Health Service (NHS), for safe hydration.Before the employment of Speech and Language Pathologist (SLP) in HANU (January 2023), prescriptions were standardized, regardless of the swallowing impairment severity: 4 jars of thickener per patient/month and 6 watergels daily. The Clinical Swallowing Evaluation (CSE) made by SLP allowed to customize the amount of thickeners and watergels based on patient's actual needs. The aim of this study is to investigate the cost savings resulting from the employment of SLP in HANU. A descriptive retrospective study was conducted analyzing the SLP activity in HANU of ASL Roma 3 (January-December 2023). The study group consisted in 149 patients (61 males, 88 females with a mean age of 76.2 years) with different pathologies. The cost of each product (thickener and gelified water) was provided by the Regional Pharmacy. The annual savings were calculated as the difference between the standardized prescription of products (as usual care in our Department) and the personalized prescription after SLP assessment. Results Since January 2023, there has been an increasing trend in requests for SLP assessments. The employment of SLP in HANU resulted in an annual economic saving of € 30,278.67. This preliminary study shows how the employment of SLP in HANU can reduce inappropriate prescriptions of thickener and water gel, thus ensuring cost savings.
Keywords: Alessandra Matano: Writing -original draft, Writing -review & editing. Alice Di Battista: Writing -original draft, Writing -review & editing. Antonio Vivenzio: Supervision, Writing -review & editing. Claudia Nunziata: Writing -original draft, Writing -review & editing. Loredana Gigli: Supervision, Writing -review & editing. Lucia Di Palma: Writing -original draft, Writing -review & editing. Ylenia Di Giancaterino: Writing -original draft, Writing -review & editing Speech language pathologist (SLP)
Received: 12 Feb 2025; Accepted: 31 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Di Battista, Di Giancaterino, Di Palma, Nunziata, Gigli, Vivenzio and Matano. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Alice Di Battista, Azienda Sanitaria Locale Roma 3, Rome, Italy
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