Home Nutrition Support Program

Welcome to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center's Home Nutrition Support Program Website

This service is directed by Nicholas Tawa, MD, PhD, a member of the Division of Surgical Oncology at BIDMC, in conjunction with Susan McAreavey RD, LDN, who serves as Clinical Coordinator for the program. Our team works together with the home care companies servicing individual patients to ensure safe and nutritionally sound intravenous nutrition support. We are available for new patient evaluations in both the outpatient and inpatient setting. Our focus is the patient requiring parenteral (intravenous) feeding, as opposed to enteral (gut) feeding, although in some instances a complex approach to management requiring both feeding modalities will be appropriate.

• Total parenteral nutrition (TPN) can provide all of the nutrients the human body requires to maintain adequate nutrition and to support growth and healing, and is most often started in the hospital at the time of acute illness or following surgery.
• At BIDMC, inpatient registered dietitians work together with the healthcare team to make appropriate recommendations for starting and advancing TPN based on nutritional needs.
• Once at home, a home care company, often with the assistance of the Visiting Nurse Association (VNA), and under the direction of Dr. Tawa, provides the TPN formula, assists with venous access devices, and provides additional services as needed.
• The TPN formula is adjusted weekly or as needed by our team, based on laboratory and other clinical data.

In addition to prescribing the TPN solution and metabolic management, our program also provides additional supervision of enrolled patients, with periodic outpatient visits to Dr. Tawa and telephone contact as needed. Our goal is to provide the TPN-dependent individual the most normal, unhindered, and healthy life possible.