Nutrition intervention is most effective in decreasing hospital length of stay when it starts within 48 hours of admission. In order to accomplish this, the initial nutrition risk screening must be accomplished within the first 24 hours so that intervention can be planned and implemented in a timely fashion. At our institution, dietetic technicians perform the initial nutrition risk screening, and the registered dietitian (RD) then develops a nutrition care plan for the patient. Patients who screen “not at risk” are re-screened every 7 days if still in hospital. A review of risk screening activities revealed that only 70% of the patients were receiving nutrition risk screening within the first 24 hours after admission, and 50% of the patients screened were found to be at risk by the screening criteria. This inferred a probability that 15% of patients who would be found to be at nutrition risk were not receiving screening within the first 24 hours. In reviewing the screening process it was noted that the most time-consuming part was evaluating height for age, weight for age, and weight for height on National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) growth charts. The decision was made to obtain a computer program that would aid in nutrition risk screening by automatically calculating the patient's growth percentiles when given weight, height, gender, and age. One month after the use of this program had been implemented, another review of nutrition risk screening activities was performed. It was found that 100% of newly admitted patients were being screened within 24 hours, and patients who were due for re-screening were also receiving the service in a timely fashion. A monthly review of dietetic technician worksheets (daily reports) indicates that nutrition risk screening continues to proceed with 100% compliance.