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Foodservice Plays an Integral Role in Patient Care at Cancer Treatment Centers of America at Southeastern Regional Medical Center in Newnan, Ga.

"The greatest success in the Newnan design is the consolidation of cooking banks in larger hooded areas, compared to smaller hood systems throughout the kitchen facility," Rymer says. This allowed for consolidation of the cooking equipment and also the consolidation of the utilities that serve the devices. Another achievement was the effective flow of food materials in the kitchen from dry goods storage and freezers and coolers to the respective points of use.

Food for all services comes into the hospital's main loading dock where staff receive it and distribute to the dry storage area, or one of the walk-ins (freezer, meat cooler or vegetable cooler). Culinary staff transport the products from storage to a cold prep area for chopping, slicing, dicing, cleaning and sorting vegetables or to another area for meat prep. A soda bag-in-box unit sits nearby.

Staff transport products requiring further prep to the main hot prep line containing a combi oven, a 6-burner range, an overhead broiler, a 4-burner range, a 40-gallon tilt kettle and a 40-gallon tilt skillet.
In addition, staff take products to another hot prep line that supports the Café as well as the tray prep line for patient room service. This includes a refrigerated worktable, a pair of 6-burner ranges, overhead broiler, a top-range griddle, a 12-gallon kettle and convection steamer. The adjacent tray prep line is a chef's counter with a sink, a sandwich refrigerator, a microwave oven, an induction cooker, a food warmer, hot food wells and a cook's refrigerator. "The chef's counter is designed in a similar way as a chef's counter for a restaurant or club," Camacho says. "It can handle all the needs of the patients and the room service delivery method." Another nearby assembly area contains a receiving table, a beverage table with a sink, four mobile pot storage units, enclosed transport carts, a reach-in refrigerator and cook's refrigerator.

For room service, hosts and hostesses visit the patients before each meal to take their orders, which they later assemble and deliver. Staff dietitians and nutritionists review the menus and ingredients used for patient foodservice to ensure patients receive completely balanced meals and no part of their meals will interfere with their medical treatments.

The Café

In the servery, the layout allows Café guests to view most of the meal production. Guests include patients receiving treatments as well as their caregivers, family and friends, and Southeastern staff.
Guests entering the serving area first approach a stone-hearth pizza oven. "The pizza oven is a new addition to the hospital's foodservice offerings and has become so popular that the other CTCA facilities are looking into adding pizza ovens to their current operations," Camacho says.

Staff prepare the pizza dough in the adjacent bake prep area, which includes a 60-quart mixer, ingredient bins, a baker's table, a mobile pot storage unit, wood-top table, sheeter and molder and a convection oven. In addition to preparing pizza dough here, staff also use the bakery to make muffins, cookies, cakes, cobblers and pastries. Café guests can watch the entire show through glass windows separating the prep space from dining.

Closer to the guests, staff assemble pizza ingredients, bake them in the oven and place them on a heated shelf for display before service. The pizza area shares the counter with six hot food wells at the home-cooking line. Here customers find comfort meals along with the chefs' daily specials.

Across an aisle is the grill station where culinary staff use a charbroiler with an oven beneath, two overhead broilers and a griddle to prepare burgers, chicken and proteins for sandwiches. The grill area also serves as the breakfast to-order station. At the adjacent exhibition cooking station, staff use induction burners to prepare to-order entrées for guests. The entrées include everything from pasta to an à la carte sauté station and Asian and Mexican dishes. At the exhibition and grill areas, staff can access ingredients through glass doors opening up to a walk-in cooler, which contributes to their operational efficiency. In the middle of the servery, a U-shaped salad bar holds cold ingredient pans so guests can make their own salads. Hot wells hold specialty items such as heated desserts. Soup wells offer two selections daily. Grab-and-go refrigerators hold bottled drinks, desserts, sides and other menu items. A two-flavor soft custard dispenser sits in this area, offering a popular treat.

As guests exit through the cashier area, they find a large condiment stand with serviceware holders. "This was designed so that if guests only need a fork, they can just take it instead of taking all utensils before entering the serving area," Camacho says.

Dining Room and Coffee Shop

In the dining room, large tables can hold up to eight people. "When patients come in for their first treatments, a large number of family members accompany them to provide support, so the larger tables are needed," Camacho says. "Later, patients are often accompanied by fewer people, so four-tops are appropriate."

The dining room opens into three rooms through expandable walls, so a large meeting or banquet can take place while guests use the main dining room.