This week is Malnutrition Week, an annual campaign dedicated to educating healthcare professionals, patients and consumers on detection, intervention and treatment of malnutrition.

Malnutrition refers to deficiencies or excesses in nutrient intake, imbalance of essential nutrients or impaired nutrient utilisation. Malnutrition can cause a break down of tissue, which can lead to a loss of organ and muscle mass, further fuelling frailty and poor clinical outcomes.

One in three adult hospital patients in Australia are malnourished. At Northern Health, healthcare professionals are working to reduce the incidence of malnutrition among patients.

“Every Northern Health inpatient is required to be weighed and screened for malnutrition risk within 24 hours of admission to hospital,” said Tugba Erbasi, Grade 2 Dietitian at Northern Health.

“Further re-screening is also required weekly thereafter. When malnutrition risk is identified, clinicians should refer patients to a dietitian,” said Maggie Bradley, Grade 2 Dietitian at Northern Health.

Signs and symptoms of a person suffering from malnutrition can include unintentional weightloss, reduced appetite and food intake, chewing and/or swallowing problems, depression, dementia and difficulty shopping, cooking and/or feeding themselves,” says Emma Tomkins, Grade 2 Dietitian at Northern Health.

“Malnutrition has many negative consequences for hospitalised patients including depression of the immune systems, impaired wound healing, muscle wasting, longer length of hospital stay, higher treatment costs and increased mortality,” said Nadia Obeid, Dietitian, Renal Services.

Over the last six years, Northern Health’s Dietetics Department has been undertaking annual malnutrition prevalence studies, which involves surveying acute and subacute inpatients across Northern Health to determine malnutrition prevalence, and whether malnutrition risk screening and weighing has been completed when required.

Results from the 2024 annual Malnutrition Point Prevalence Study (PPS) found that 23 percent of Northern Health patients were malnourished, which is lower than the national estimated prevalence of 33 per cent, according to Tugba. All malnourished patients received nutrition care from the dietetics service.

“The Northern Health Malnutrition Point Prevalence Study concluded that out of the 93 malnourished patients, 100 per cent had dietetics involvement. Ninety-six percent of Northern Hospital patients were screened by nursing staff on admission – this has increased from 74 per cent in 2023 and 61 percent in 2022,” said Tugba.

“Hospital acquired malnutrition is low at Northern Health, although thorough investigations occurs for those identified to prevent recurrence in the future,” said Maggie.

“We are also reviewing and updating EMR processes to ensure at risk and malnourished patients are referred appropriately,” said Emma.

Northern Health continues to monitor the incidence of hospital acquired malnutrition, which account for a very small number of malnutrition cases, averaging about one percent of cases a year, and is much lower than the national rates.

“We review every case of hospital acquired malnutrition at the Standard 5 Nutrition and Hydration CIC, and have undertaken many multidisciplinary initiatives over the years to improve malnutrition risk screening and optimise the nutrition care of our patients,” said Nadia.

“For Malnutrition Week, the Dietetics Department would like to thank all the teams we work with for their amazing efforts to help recognise malnutrition risk, referring to the Dietetics Department when indicated, and for supporting our patients when optimising their nutrition care.”

“It is absolutely a team effort.”

Featured image: Members of the Dietetics team at Bundoora Centre.