(Vienna, 12 November 2026) What began 20 years ago as an initiative to raise awareness of malnutrition within the healthcare sector is now an internationally established project: nutritionDay was launched in 2006 by anaesthetist Michael Hiesmayr and nutrition expert Karin Schindler at MedUni Vienna. The aim was, and remains, to raise awareness of disease-related malnutrition and to improve the nutritional care of patients in hospitals and residents of care homes. To mark its 20th anniversary, the team at MedUni Vienna looks back on two decades of international collaboration and scientific data collection.
Malnutrition remains a frequently underestimated challenge in the healthcare sector. Older people, those with chronic illnesses and hospitalised patients are particularly at risk. Inadequate food intake can have a negative impact on the course of a disease, prolong the duration of a hospital stay and increase the risk of complications. At the same time, malnutrition often goes unrecognised in everyday clinical practice.
A day that raises global awareness
Once a year, healthcare facilities around the world are invited to systematically assess the nutritional status of their patients and residents. Standardised questionnaires are used to document, amongst other things, nutritional status, eating habits and the provision of care. The anonymised data is fed into an international database.
Participating organisations subsequently receive reports on the results, enabling them to compare their own situation with that of similar organisations worldwide. This highlights gaps in care and identifies specific areas for improvement. Repeated participation also allows trends to be observed and the effectiveness of measures taken to be evaluated.
From a Viennese initiative to an international research project
From the very beginning, the idea behind nutritionDay was to link scientific findings with concrete improvements in everyday clinical practice. After all, it is not only crucial to record malnutrition, but also to recognise it in good time and take appropriate action.
Michael Hiesmayr, who co-founded nutritionDay, has been involved in the initiative’s development since its inception. Today, the project is coordinated, amongst others, by Silvia Tarantino as nutritionDay Manager. Together with the participating healthcare facilities and international partners, the team is working to further develop data collection and to put the insights gained to use in patient care.
20 years of nutritionDay: raising awareness and improving care
This anniversary provides an opportunity to look back on the initiative’s development to date and, at the same time, to highlight the importance of this issue for the future of healthcare. Despite growing scientific evidence, the key challenge remains to identify malnutrition at an early stage and to establish nutrition as an essential component of medical treatment.
After 20 years, the original aim of nutritionDay remains as relevant as ever: to highlight malnutrition, improve the quality of nutritional care and thereby contribute to better treatment outcomes and a higher quality of life.
20 years nutritionDay
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