Looking to Innovate!
Find out how Innovations in Nutrition Programs and Services (INNU) grantees are successfully improving participant well-being and creating cost-savings for programs. Learn how to replicate these projects in your own community!
Looking to Innovate? Start Here!
Looking to start your own innovative project? Take a look at what past and current INNU
grantees are doing and use the replication guides to get started.
- Innovations in Nutrition Programs and Services — Background of the INNU program
and funded grantee project descriptions - What is Innovation? Part Discipline, Part Creativity, All Possible
- Summary brief — Short guide to the four basic steps to innovation
- Extended brief — Full and descriptive guide to understand innovation and apply
this practice to your organization
- Imagining an Innovative and Sustainable Future Through Creative Thinking
- Innovations 101 Training Series (2019) — The big WHY and HOW of innovation
and getting started with your own innovation process - Practical Applications in Creative Ideation — Intensive workshop
- Launching Your Innovation Journey — Roadmap for success that lays out advancing projects, accountability, next steps, and more
- Innovations 101 Training Series (2019) — The big WHY and HOW of innovation
Capstone Projects
At the end of an INNU grant, the grantee organization creates a Capstone Project to help others replicate their work. The Capstone Projects are meant to inspire and provide a “how-to” guide to make innovation easy to implement for all.
Technology Solution
- Improving Nutrition and Health of Rural Older Adults Following Hospital Discharge
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Improved nutrition and health through AI technology, meals, and nutrition counseling following hospital discharge.
- Connecting Seniors to Care: Implementing Amazon Alexa Technology into the Homes of Meals on Wheels Clients
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Investigated the ways Amazon Alexa technology can support the social determinants of health together with Meals on Wheels deliveries to improve health outcomes, reduce isolation, and provide innovations to support the principles of aging in place.
- Improving Client Service Through Advanced Data-Card Technology
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Deployed AI-enabled speakers into homes to increase nutrition access.
- Modernizing Home-Delivered Meals Through Frozen Meals and a Web-Based App
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Developed meal delivery software application for the aging population at risk of food insecurity.
- East Harlem Village: Fostering Cross-Sector Partnerships and Raising Community Voices to Address Food Insecurity and Social Isolation Among Older Adults in NYC
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Established a technology-based network of services to address food insecurity and social isolation.
Malnutrition and Food Insecurity
- Tackling Malnutrition Through a Statewide Delivery System
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Introduced evidence-based practices and innovative meals to expand services to the aging population.
- Offering Nutrition-Focused Diabetes Self-Management
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Improved health outcomes and reduced health care costs for the aging population with Type 2 diabetes.
- Increasing Use of Community-Based Resources by Food-Insecure Seniors
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Designed a closed-loop referral system to increase accessibility to community-based resources for food insecure patients.
- Your Health, Your Way, Your Table
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Implementation of an Improved Collaborative Malnutrition-Focused Transitions of Care and Referral Process Based on Identified Gaps between Healthcare Entities and Aging Services
Enhanced community malnutrition transitions of care for recently discharged home-delivered meal recipients at risk for malnutrition through interventions provided through registered dietitian nutritionists home visitations.
- SixtyPLUS: How Meals-on-Wheels Redefines Population Health
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Partnered with local fire/EMS departments, combined registered dietitian services with home-delivered meals, and implemented the Home Care Frailty Scale.
Health Care Partnerships
- Assessing Malnutrition Risk through a Home Visitation Program
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Explored health outcomes of recently discharged home-delivered meal recipients at risk of malnutrition.
- Addressing Ability to Eat with Modified Meals
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Improved the effectiveness of home-delivered meals to promote oral health and dental care.
- WeCare ServicesTM Personal Health Nursing for Seniors Receiving Title III Home-Delivered Meals
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Improved the health and well-being of homebound seniors.
Congregate and Café Dining
- Collaborating with Community Partners on a Congregate Meal Delivery Model
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Created the “Encore Cafe” to increase congregate meal program participation.
- Increasing Choice Through a Flexible, Technology-Driven Meal Program
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Increased confidence and decreased social isolation for meal site participants by providing flexibility in how and where they dine.
- Texas Congregate Meal Initiative
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Modernized local congregate programs through a learning collaborative model to improve well-being, expand benefits, and impact older Texans’ health outcomes.
- Improving Heart Health Through Diet, Education, and Self-Efficacy
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Combined educational, social, behavioral, and nutrition interventions (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension [DASH] diet) to decrease blood pressure throughout congregate meal sites.
Mental Health
- Supporting Older Adults at Risk of Suicide Through Nutrition Services
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Created a suicide intervention program for nutrition services volunteers to support the aging population with elevated suicide risk or mental health distress.