MANNA Study on Cost Saving Nutrition Program Finally Receives Recognition

Last spring, the nonprofit food-provider MANNA released a study on the financial and medical benefits of good nutrition. The study set out to prove the organization’s long-held belief that its service — providing nutritional food to the ill — was not only helpful but essential to health care.

But for the last year the study’s conclusions have fallen on deaf ears. “The feedback we got from the press was that unless its peer-reviewed and published with a journal no one wanted to talk about it,” said Susan Daugherty, Executive Director of MANNA.

In a Q&A with Generocity.org earlier this year, Sue Daugherty talked about MANNA’s ambitions to expand their research to open doors for the organization.

“The research is what I think we will use to get into the politicians’ offices, to get into the healthcare institutions, and to sit down with the right players where it makes sense,” said Daugherty in that interview.

Now, a year later, the study has been peer-reviewed and published by the Journal of Primary Care and Community Health, and MANNA’s work is finally getting recognition from the broader healthcare community.

One of the most important findings of the study (and perhaps what piqued the interest of the healthcare community) is that good nutrition can actually cut costs by reducing hospital visits and helping patients better tolerate treatment.

For example, MANNA clients average monthly health care costs were shown to drop 62% for three consecutive months after beginning service, and were also 20% more likely to be released from the hospital to home rather than long-term care.

Prior to the study, MANNA did not have this kind of hard evidence to present to the public and to the healthcare system.

“We were tracking quality of life outcomes. We were tracking nutrition outcomes,” Daugherty said. “But we knew that if we wanted to get the insurance companies and healthcare systems to pay attention to us, at the end of the day it came down to dollars and cents.”

“Honestly, we’ve never been able to get a seat at the table prior to the research,” she added.

Now, MANNA is in conversation with multiple healthcare organizations, including Temple Health System and Einstein Healthcare. The plan is to work with these organizations to get insurance companies to reimburse for therapeutic meals, explained Daugherty.

“Its unfortunate that it comes down to dollar and cents,” she added. “But so often people look at a nonprofit and think ‘Oh, you do good work and it’s so nice that you’re doing the work that you do’ — but it goes so much farther beyond that. We are an essential provider in the treatment of equal medical care. And I think that more and more nonprofits need to prove that, and prove their worth and what their impact is in the community.”

(Photo via MANNANourishes)