It is intuitive that nutritional status at hospital admission predicts the outcome of treatment and length of stay.  Yet too many older patients are over-drugged and undernourished on the day of their admission to the hospital and not only experience more complications and hospital-acquired infections, but by conservative estimation spend an extra costly day or two in the hospital. If nutritional assessment and corrective therapy were to be instituted upon hospital admission and reduced hospital length of stay by just 1 day, it is estimated in this report that practice would save $73 billion to Medicare Part A.  That represents … Continue reading Hospitals Are Making a Killing