Café Panel

Session Description: 

In a series of four presentations this session will highlight current nutrition screening practices that are taking place across different provinces across Canada.  Speakers will share their experiences with nutrition screening within their unique primary care practice settings. Attendees will learn about feasible strategies to navigate around obstacles to successful nutrition screening for malnutrition.

Panel 1: Ontario's Model - Four years of learning in Primary Care

Speaker:  Michele MacDonald Werstuck 

Speaker Bio:

Michele MacDonald Werstuck RD MSC CDE is the Nutrition Coordinator and Coordinator for Practice and Community Development, Hamilton Family Health Team. She is also an Assistant Professor, Part-time, Department of Family Medicine, McMaster University. Michele has been instrumental in championing efforts to reach vulnerable populations in primary care, championing senior malnutrition screening efforts and healthy aging programming and more recently, leading the Hamilton FHT Bariatric Working Group in the development of tools and interprofessional care pathways. Michele will be sharing lessons learned from primary care dietitians in Ontario and their efforts over the past four years to raise awareness of the impact of malnutrition on health outcomes. She will also be reviewing how RDs have worked together with their teams to promote diet resilience and healthy aging by embedding nutrition screening into family practice.

Panel 2: Alberta - New Adopter - Early Learnings in Primary Care

Speaker:  Rhiannon Quintilio  

Speaker Bio:

Rhiannon Quintilio RD has been a primary care dietitian for 11 years and is currently an improvement facilitator for the Edmonton Southside Primary Care Network in Alberta.  Prior to her current role, Rhiannon was involved in looking at ways to optimize the role of RDs in the clinic setting.  Rhiannon developed a keen interest in identifying and treating malnutrition in primary care after reading the results of the More-2-Eat study and will be sharing the successes and challenges of her journey to implement malnutrition screening in seniors discharged from hospital. 

Panel 3: British Columbia - Growth of Nutrition Screening in Home Health    

Speaker:  Leila Goharian   

Speaker Bio:

Leila Goharian RD MSc is a Community Home Health/Care Dietitian at Vancouver Coastal Health Authority in British Columbia. She has led many research projects and knowledge translation campaigns to raise awareness of screening, identifying and combating malnutrition in the community. She has played an instrumental role in successfully implementing malnutrition screening tools as part of clinicians’ routine assessments across all Vancouver Home Health sites. She is an active member of the CMTF, Primary Care working group devoting her time to help target the nutrition state of vulnerable populations. Leila will be sharing her experiences on the success and challenges of implementing and sustaining a malnutrition screening tool in the community.

Panel 4: Québec - Community Opportunities in Québec *  

Speaker:  Melissa Mercier   

Speaker Bio:

Melissa Mercier, Dt. P finished her nutrition degree in 2013 at Laval University, Québec. She started her dietitian career in long term care facilities at the Integrated Center of Health and Social Services of the National Capital (CIUSSSCN). Then she moved on to homecare while working in a variety of settings, including current health. She has been offering private consultations since 2014 in a variety of settings. In February 2021, she started to explore the reality of working as a dietitian in primary care in the unique region of Abitibi. Her collaboration with the Canadian Malnutrition Task Force started in 2018 and she is still working with the primary care working group to prevent, detect and teat malnutrition in primary care. 

Mélissa Mercier est diplômée en nutrition de l'Université Laval de Québec. Elle a débuté sa carrière de nutritionniste en centre de soins de longue durée pour le Centre Intégré Universitaire de Santé et Services Sociaux de la Capitale Nationale (CIUSSSCN). Elle a ensuite été transférée au programme de soutien à domicile et a également travaillé dans différents milieux en parallèle tel que les services courants. Elle offre également des consultations privées en tant que travailleur autonome depuis 2014 dans différents milieux. En février 2021, elle explore la réalité d’une autre région, celle de l’Abitibi, en y travaillant comme nutritionniste dans des services de première ligne. Sa collaboration avec le Groupe Canadien de Travail sur la Malnutrition a débuté en 2018 et elle s’implique encore auprès d’eux à la poursuite des travaux sur la prévention, le dépistage et le traitement de la malnutrition en première ligne.  

* Cette présentation est donnée en français.

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