Effect of Medically Tailored Meals on Clinical Outcomes in Recently Hospitalized High-Risk Adults

Inability to adhere to nutritional recommendations is common and linked to worse outcomes in patients with nutrition-sensitive conditions. OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study is to evaluate whether medically tailored meals (MTMs) improve outcomes in recently discharged adults with nutrition-sensitive conditions compared with usual care. RESEARCH DESIGN: Remote pragmatic randomized trial. SUBJECTS: Adults with heart failure, diabetes, or chronic kidney disease being discharged home between April 27, 2020, and June 9, 2021, from 5 hospitals within an integrated health care delivery system. MEASURES: Participants were prerandomized to 10 weeks of MTMs (with or without virtual nutritional counseling) compared with usual care. The primary outcome was all-cause hospitalization within 90 days after discharge. Exploratory outcomes included all-cause and cause-specific health care utilization and all-cause death within 90 days after discharge. RESULTS: A total of 1977 participants (MTMs: n=993, with 497 assigned to also receive virtual nutritional counseling; usual care: n=984) were enrolled. Compared with usual care, MTMs did not reduce all-cause hospitalization at 90 days after discharge [adjusted hazard ratio, aHR: 1.02, 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.86–1.21]. In exploratory analyses, MTMs were associated with lower mortality (aHR: 0.65, 95% CI, 0.43–0.98) and fewer hospitalizations for heart failure (aHR: 0.53, 95% CI, 0.33–0.88), but not for any emergency department visits (aHR: 0.95, 95% CI, 0.78–1.15) or diabetes-related hospitalizations (aHR: 0.75, 95% CI, 0.31–1.82). No additional benefit was observed with virtual nutritional counseling. CONCLUSIONS: Provision of MTMs after discharge did not reduce risk of all-cause hospitalization in adults with nutrition-sensitive conditions. Additional large-scale randomized controlled trials are needed to definitively determine the impact of MTMs on survival and cause-specific health care utilization in at-risk individuals.