Endocrinology and Nutrition (E&N) is a medical specialty that encompasses a wide range of activities affecting different areas. It involves the study of the pathophysiology of the endocrine system, metabolism, natural and artificial nutrition, health promotion, and use of diagnostic and therapeutic techniques related to these fields.1

E&N services perform clinical, teaching, management, and research functions. Clinical activities are conducted both at the hospital level (inpatient ward and day hospital) and on an outpatient basis in external consultations. Inpatient care includes patients admitted under E&N for conditions specific to the specialty, as well as patients admitted under other services who request consultation for the management of endocrinological or nutritional comorbidities. Most of the E&N activity in the inpatient ward comes from consultations for patients under other services.2 This is partly because the characteristics of the conditions treated by endocrinologists on an outpatient basis are different from the endocrinological/nutritional processes for which consultations are requested during admission. Most endocrinological and nutritional diseases can be managed on an outpatient basis, as reflected in studies such as the Health Care Activity in Endocrinology and Nutrition Consultations of Castilla-La Mancha (AACENCAM), which shows that the main conditions treated in E&N outpatient clinics are diabetes mellitus, hypothyroidism, and thyroid nodular disease.3 However, in the inpatient setting, the most frequent diagnoses are nutritional disease and its therapy, as well as acute decompensations of glucose metabolism.2

There are few studies that examine the consultation activity of E&N in the inpatient ward.2 E&N addresses high-prevalence conditions that increase hospital stay and costs, such as diabetes mellitus/hyperglycemia and, especially, malnutrition. Managing nutritional disease provides clinical and economic benefits to health services by reducing hospital morbidity and mortality without increasing adverse events.4

This study aims to evaluate the evolution of the consultation activity in the inpatient ward by E&N specialists at Complejo Hospitalario y Universitario de Albacete (CHUA), Albacete, Spain over the past years, as well as the type of disease treated in these patients. Additionally, it seeks to compare the evolution in the number of consultations between the E&N service and the rest of the medical specialties and determine if its growth has been proportional regarding endocrinological and nutritional aspects.