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By: Anita Frankhauser Cihlar | Published: June 9, 2026 | 
9 Min
Summary:
Neighborly Care Network, a Florida Meals on Wheels provider, used ServTracker by CaseWorthy to participate in three major research initiatives — including a Brown University clinical trial studying how meal delivery models affect older adults’ ability to age in place. By making everyday service data research-grade, ServTracker let Neighborly contribute 800+ participant records without burdening staff, proving community nutrition programs can drive serious science.
When Neighborly Care Network talks about the impact of its Meals on Wheels program, it now has more than heartfelt stories to point to, it has emerging evidence from some of the most ambitious research efforts in the aging and nutrition space. Through a series of pilots with national partners and an ongoing clinical trial with Brown University, Neighborly has used ServTracker by CaseWorthy to transform everyday service data into research-grade insights about how home-delivered meals support older adults in the community.
A Local Meals on Wheels Program Steps onto the Research Stage
Neighborly Care Network serves older adults in Florida with a wide range of services, including home-delivered meals for people who are homebound or at high nutritional and social risk. Over the last several years, the organization has been invited to participate in three major projects:
- An Aetna-supported pilot that tested how meal drivers could observe and report changes in clients’ conditions.
- A Humana post-discharge meals benefit that provided short-term nutrition support after hospital stays.
- Deliver-EE, a large clinical trial led by Brown University and Meals on Wheels America, designed to evaluate different models of meal delivery for older adults.
All three opportunities came through Neighborly’s engagement with Meals on Wheels America and its reputation as a data-ready program that could meet the demands of complex, multi-partner initiatives. ServTracker, which Neighborly uses to manage its nutrition services, became the shared system that made this level of collaboration possible.
Inside the Deliver-EE Trial with Brown University
Deliver-EE, short for Evaluating Effects of Meal Delivery is a multi-site trial, led by Brown University in partnership with Meals on Wheels America. Deliver-EE is studying how different ways of delivering meals affect older adults’ ability to remain at home and avoid higher levels of care. The project was designed to answer questions that providers, advocates, and policymakers all share: how much do meal services help people stay safely in their homes, and does the method of delivery change those outcomes?
Deliver-EE focuses on homebound, food-insecure older adults who are on waiting lists for Meals on Wheels programs across the country. By partnering with local providers like Neighborly, the research team can study real-world service models at scale, rather than relying on small or highly controlled pilots.
Researchers enrolled homebound, food-insecure older adults who were waiting for Meals on Wheels services. Participants were randomized to receive six months of either:
Weekday hot meals delivered in person, with regular check-ins, or
Twice-monthly deliveries of frozen meals, shipped in bulk to the home.
Over the course of the study, the research team is examining differences in health and utilization outcomes between these two approaches, including hospital use, nursing home placement, and other indicators of health, safety, and independence. The design allows Deliver-EE to compare not only whether meals make a difference, but also how in-person contact versus bulk shipment may matter for different groups of older adults.
Across the national study, the goal was to follow about 2,300 older adults and track outcomes like hospital use, nursing home placement, and other indicators of health and independence. Neighborly alone has contributed data on more than 800 participants over roughly three years, making it one of the largest contributors to the trial’s sample and a key partner in helping the research team reach its enrollment goals.
How Neighborly and the Research Team Work Together in One System
For Deliver-EE, Neighborly and Brown University needed to share information about the same clients continuously and securely, without overwhelming staff with manual data entry. ServTracker is the backbone that allows Neighborly and the other participating provider organizations to do that.
Neighborly’s process began with its own waitlist. Staff identified clients who met the study’s inclusion criteria and saved that information to a secure FTP site. CaseWorthy staff imported those records into ServTracker, the system that Neighborly already used to manage Meals on Wheels. This ensured that both Neighborly and Brown were working with the same standardized client data.
From there, the researchers:
Used secure accounts in ServTracker to document screening, informed consent, and enrollment decisions.
Sent electronic referrals back to Neighborly through the system when a participant agreed to join the study.
Once Neighborly received the referral, staff placed the participant on service and delivered meals according to their assigned study arm, daily hot meals or frozen shipped meals, while recording deliveries and visit notes in ServTracker just as they would for any other client.
For Neighborly, one of the biggest advantages was only having to enter each participant’s information once. Instead of juggling spreadsheets, email threads, and duplicate records, staff could rely on ServTracker as the single source of truth that supported both routine operations and the study’s data needs. That efficiency made it feasible for community-based organizations to support a multi-year trial with thousands of records without hiring a separate research data team.
A Research Perspective on the Partnership
Brown University’s research team also saw the value of having CaseWorthy and ServTracker at the center of the project. As Kimberly Bernard, PhD, Project Director and Co-Principal Investigator for Deliver-EE, explains, “Our partnership with CaseWorthy gave us a data solution that met the reporting needs of our research team and more importantly, did not place undue burden on the program staff.”
“The database we created with CaseWorthy ended up being foundational to our research design,” Bernard adds. “We were lucky to have put our trust in a reliable vendor, with a team who fully understood our goals and the outcomes we needed to achieve.”
These insights from the research side reinforce what Neighborly has experienced on the program side: the right technology platform can support rigorous science without disrupting day-to-day services for older adults.
Earlier Pilots Paved the Way
Neighborly’s path to Deliver-EE started with earlier projects that also leaned on ServTracker to support data sharing and reporting.
In an Aetna-backed pilot, Neighborly used ServTracker’s change-of-condition functionality so drivers could note concerns about clients’ health or home environment during deliveries. Those observations were captured in structured fields that could be shared back with the health plan, showing how meal drivers could serve as a front-line safety net for isolated older adults.
In a Humana post-discharge pilot, Meals on Wheels Health sent referrals to Neighborly through ServTracker for older adults who qualified for a short-term meal benefit after leaving the hospital. All participating local providers used ServTracker for the referral process so that information could move quickly and securely, even when organizations had different systems or workflows on the delivery side.
Both projects demonstrated something important: community-based nutrition programs can meet the expectations of large healthcare partners when they have the right technology in place. That track record positioned Neighborly as a strong candidate for Deliver-EE and future research collaborations.
From Compliance to Insight: What This Means for Neighborly
Being part of these studies has changed how Neighborly thinks about its own data. Rather than viewing ServTracker primarily as a tool for eligibility, scheduling, and required reporting, the team now sees it as a foundation for continuous learning and improvement.
Participation in the Aetna, Humana, and Brown projects has inspired Neighborly to look at its own clients more systematically over time, for example, capturing information at enrollment, six months, and one year to better understand how services are affecting people’s health and daily lives. That same data can then support grant applications, local advocacy, and community education about why nutrition and social connection matter for older adults.
Neighborly’s experience also points toward what is possible at a national level. As more programs align around shared data elements and use systems like ServTracker and CaseWorthy to capture information in consistent ways, organizations could aggregate outcomes across thousands of providers. This data can provide policymakers and funders a clearer picture of how home-delivered meals help people age in place and why sustained investment in these services matters.
A Partner in Both Care and Research
At the heart of this story is a local provider that wanted to do more than provide a critical service, it wanted to show, with data, what that service means for older adults’ health and independence. ServTracker by CaseWorthy has been one of the tools that made that possible, helping Neighborly participate in complex pilots and a large clinical trial without losing sight of day-to-day care.
As results from Deliver-EE and related projects continue to emerge, Neighborly’s contributions will help shape the evidence base that advocates, health plans, and policymakers rely on. And for other organizations in the aging and nutrition space, Neighborly’s journey offers a practical roadmap, with the right data infrastructure, community-based programs can be not just service providers, but key partners in the research that defines the future of aging services.
The Data Behind the Mission
When Neighborly joined a national clinical trial studying how meal delivery affects older adults’ independence, ServTracker became the shared research infrastructure. Read how everyday service data became research-grade evidence.
About the Author
Anita Frankhauser Cihlar
Anita Frankhauser Cihlar is a dedicated registered dietitian and the Nutrition Director for Neighborly Care Network and Meals on Wheels Pinellas County. As an alumna of the University of South Florida (USF), Anita holds a Master of Science in Clinical Nutrition from Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science. With a passion for enhancing the well-being of seniors, Anita plays a crucial role in developing and managing nutrition programs that support the health and independence of older adults.
Neighborly Care Network, a private non-profit organization established in 1966, has been a cornerstone in the Pinellas County community, providing essential services such as Adult Day Care, Transportation, and comprehensive nutrition programs. Anita’s expertise and commitment contribute significantly to Neighborly’s mission of serving seniors with compassion and excellence.
