Multidisciplinary effort to improve the diagnosis of malnutrition in hospitalized patients.

Malnutrition has been increasingly demonstrated to be common and underrecognized in hospitalized patients. Rates have been demonstrated as high as 55%, but the diagnosis of malnutrition has historically been made in only a minority of inpatients. Laboratory studies, including serum prealbumin level, have been shown to have poor predictive value of malnutrition.