Healing meals

Since she was diagnosed with heart failure earlier this year, Betty Winstead, 84, has become a familiar face at Carney Hospital. Her medical team has taken all the conventional steps to keep her from returning, but nothing has broken the distressing and costly cycle of home to hospital and back. Last Monday, Steward Health Care launched a new approach for Winstead and patients like her. The hospital company hired City Fresh Foods to deliver three low-sodium meals and two snacks to Winstead’s Mattapan home each day, free to Winstead. Doctors hope healthy food such as berry granola, bean and kale burritos and sweet and sour tofu will ease her symptoms — and cut down her trips to Carney. “We really want to make a lifestyle change for the patient,’’ said Dr. Lana Tsao, director of advanced heart failure and the coronary care unit at St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center, which, like Carney, is owned by Steward. “Patients will say “I don’t want to change my diet. I have been eating this way my whole life.’ The problem is they have been eating that way their whole life.’’ http://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/health-wellness/2013/06/09/hospitals-reach-into-patients-homes-deliver-healthy-smoked-tofu-but-also-bbq-shrimp-scampi/QSqNQiycZUNxa9qbRWzs8I/story.html