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Food Services and NutritionComputers in the kitchen. No, it is not something out of a Jetsons cartoon of the future, it is an initiative currently underway through the Department of Food Services to increase accuracy of food orders and enhance patient satisfaction. It is among many new programs in the Departments of Food Services and Nutrition, all designed to improve patient satisfaction.
New customer service training initiatives have been developed by Patient Relations for Food Services attendants and Nutrition assistants. In addition, a survey of nursing staff to identify service gaps and develop a standard service recovery response to address patient complaints quickly and effectively has been implemented. Food Services and Nutrition have increased menu types (vegetarian, diabetic, low sodium, renal and low iodine). They have added patient education information to the backs of certain menus and enhanced the consistency of menus by adding pre-thickened beverages and modifying pureed recipes.
“We’ve been working closely with the Center for Clinical Excellence and Nutrition to identify areas for improvement that will have the greatest impact,” said Karen Purdy-Reilly, director, Food Services. “Along with our many other initiatives, we are in the process of implementing a total Dietary computer system that will create disease-specific patient menus. This will allow us to generate computerized patient tray tickets that will lead to increased tray accuracy.”