Table 5.

Scenarios illustrating the cost saving potential for the entire country upon improvement of medical inpatients' nutritional care. The calculation only includes hospitalisation courses for patients above the age of 59 years who are hospitalised for at least 7 days (2003 – price level). Row II to VI presents the results of the sensitivity analysis. The variation in reduction of days (0.7 and 6.1 respectively) is taken from [14]. Extra allocation of resources (i.e. hiring an nutrition assistant) is included due to inspiration from [6]. The variation in the percentage of under-nourished is based on [5].

	Assumptions	Reduction in number of inpatient days	Annual cost reduction (USD)
I	35% under-nourished. 3.4 days' reduction in hospital stay. No allocation of extra resources.	97,229	22 m.
II	35% under-nourished. 0.7 days' reduction in hospital stay. No allocation of extra resources.	19,732	4 m.
III	35% under-nourished. 6.1 days' reduction in hospital stay. No allocation of extra resources.	175,012	39 m.
IV	35% under-nourished. 3.4 days' reduction in hospital stay. Extra allocation of resources (i.e. hiring of nutrition assistant).	97,229	6 m.
V	20% under-nourished. 3.4 days' reduction in hospital stay. No allocation of extra resources.	55,559	12 m.
VI	50% under-nourished. 3.4 days' reduction in hospital stay. No allocation of extra resources.	138,899	31 m.