Delivering a Diet: Analysis of the Partnership with MANNA for Project MiNT

Type 2 diabetes is common and is associated with pathology in many organ systems. Diet has been shown to influence the risk of developing diabetes and of developing complications from it. Project MiNT is an ongoing study on the association of the receipt medically tailored meals on type 2 diabetes outcomes, primarily hemoglobin A1C levels (a marker of diabetes progression) at 6 months. Since project MiNT is the first study of its scale on this topic, much is unknown about the feasibility and fidelity of such a project. In this study, the partnership between the Jefferson Center for Connected Care, the team administering project MiNT and MANNA the organization preparing and delivering the meals, was analyzed. Employees of the Center for Connected Care and MANNA were interviewed, patient feedback surveys were analyzed, MANNA delivery data was examined, and patient open-ended feedback was analyzed. We found that participants in Project MiNT are receiving a mean of 9.57 (SD: 3.67) meals and that on a list of study characteristics, patients rated the ease of meal preparation as most satisfactory and taste of food as least satisfactory. Interviews and patient feedback revealed concerns about the feasibility of the meal delivery process and about the stress that patients face when enrolled in this time-intensive study. Based on these results, we recommend creating a text-message alert system to notify patients of when their meals will be delivered and that in future studies, patients are provided with resources to manage their stress