Building Better Outcomes in Clinical Nutrition: The National Team Powering Dietitians at Scale

Across the United States, thousands of Sodexo dietitians support patients every day — helping manage chronic disease, preventing complications and guiding recovery. But behind those clinicians is a national team quietly shaping how they practice. Julie Branham leads Sodexo’s Advanced Nutrition Practice and Innovation (ANPI) team, a group dedicated to elevating dietitians beyond compliance and into clinical leadership. 

We sat down with Branham to talk about innovation, efficiency and what the future holds for the profession. 
 

Interviewer: Julie, let’s start simply. What is Sodexo’s Advanced Nutrition Practice and Innovation team?

Branham: At its core, this team exists to help Sodexo dietitians across the U.S. to practice at the top of their credentials. Everything we do falls into three buckets: better outcomes, better food and better expertise. 

We’re not just making sure a hospital passes an inspection — that’s table stakes. We’re building systems backed by science that allow dietitians to truly function as clinical leaders on the care team. We support research, develop practice guidelines and translate evidence into tools clinicians can immediately use in practice. 

We’re essentially a national center of expertise made up of 33 master’s-prepared dietitians. Each person has a specialty — informatics, research, workforce development, regulatory compliance, clinical pathways — and together we support thousands of Sodexo dietitians across the country.

Interviewer: What does that support look like in practice?

Branham: Time. That’s the biggest thing we give back. 

Without a centralized team, every hospital would have to research clinical updates, write care pathways, build menus and track regulations independently. Instead, we do that nationally and deliver ready-to-implement resources. 

We write detailed practice guidelines — for example, how to consistently manage a patient with diabetes. The onsite clinician doesn’t have to start from scratch. They implement a validated pathway and spend more time with the patient. 

Our nutrition informatics team also builds and analyzes menus, performs nutrient analysis and tests recipes. The onsite team at a hospital can customize for local preferences, but the heavy lifting is done. 

So, the downstream impact is huge: dietitians spend less time building documents and more time delivering direct patient and resident care.

Interviewer: You mentioned outcomes. How does innovation translate to measurable results? 

Branham: Innovation only matters if it improves patient care. We at Sodexo were early leaders in identifying and documenting malnutrition, which helped hospitals improve both patient outcomes and reimbursement accuracy. Today we continue that forward-thinking approach by studying emerging trends and implementing them responsibly. 

We also contribute to the scientific community. Our clinicians regularly publish and present research. Recently we had 15 posters presented at the FNCE national conference. That’s important because it demonstrates how Sodexo dietitians contribute to the body of nutrition science and produce evidence-based practice. 

We research, pilot, publish and then scale.

Interviewer: Technology is rapidly changing healthcare. Where does AI fit into dietetics?

Branham: First of all, AI is not replacing dietitians. What it will do is help us be more efficient. Imagine starting your day and instantly knowing which patients are at highest risk for malnutrition because the system analyzed the medical record for you. Right now, that can take hours of manual reporting. 

AI can help prioritize care so clinicians intervene earlier. But patients still want a person. They want a professional interpreting the data and guiding them. The future isn’t AI instead of dietitians; it’s dietitians empowered by AI. 

Frankly, the only way AI takes a job is if someone refuses to learn how to use it.

Interviewer: Beyond current clinicians, how are you shaping the future workforce?

Branham: We think about careers from hire to retire. We strengthen dietetic internships so graduates enter practice prepared beyond minimum competency. We partner with universities to support advanced degrees. Ultimately, we strive to help our dietitians achieve doctoral-level education in clinical nutrition. 

We also created pathways for frontline team members to become credentialed dietetic technicians. That means someone can start with foodservice and grow into clinical practice. 

When people see a future in the profession, they stay. And when they stay, patients benefit.

Interviewer: If you had to summarize the impact of the ANPI team in one idea, what would it be?

Branham: Powering human care. Truly. When clinicians don’t have to spend hours researching or building their own practice guidelines, they can spend those hours with patients and residents or on educating, counseling and preventing complications. 

Julie Branham’s vision is clear: the future of clinical nutrition isn’t merely about meeting standards — it’s about setting them. Through centralized expertise, research-driven innovation and workforce development, the Advanced Nutrition Practice and Innovation team ensures dietitians are not just part of the care team, but leaders within it.

What happens when dietitians are empowered to lead system‑level change? Explore how a collaborative, dietitian-driven solution transformed nutrition referrals and delivered measurable impact. Read the Case Study.