Different types of operations face different pressures and different challenges. This series fromService Insights provides advice to specific types of foodservice establishments from long-time veterans of the equipment service and repair sector. The first story in this series focused onmaintenance tips and ideas for quick-service and fast-casual restaurants.

Healthcare foodservice directors look positively toward the future. This outlook goes hand in hand with alterations in the way they conduct business. Finding creative ways to hire and retain staff and implementing technology solutions to mitigate labor challenges and maintain menu quality consistency contribute to the new normal, as does supporting catering and events.

Industry trends and issues as seen through the eyes of those who specify kitchen equipment

Many issues continue to linger for healthcare foodservice. For example, in some hospitals the infectious disease department still determines protocols, which dictate what foodservice can and cannot do. In response, foodservice continues to navigate uncertain times and choppy waters.

UNC REX Healthcare in Raleigh, N.C., expanded its reach into Holly Springs, N.C., on the grounds of what was an existing UNC REX healthcare clinic located 20 miles from UNC REX’s main hospital in Raleigh. This community hospital, REX Holly Springs Hospital, serves as a prototype for future UNC REX Healthcare community hospitals.

Finding ways to add or enhance foodservice offerings without stretching an operator’s already-thin labor pool represents a challenge that spans most segments.

A bright, comforting cafe welcomes staff, visitors and patients at ProHealth Waukesha Memorial Hospital-Mukwonago in a suburb of Milwaukee. The Café 240 renovation project includes the operation’s retail concept platforms and a dining area, along with an adjacent kitchen that supports the cafe, catering and patient room service.

A bright, inviting environment greets staff and visitors within the Spectrum Health Lakeland Medical Center Pavilion in southwest Michigan. This project includes a new addition to the hospital and a renovation of existing space. The new addition features an airy public atrium with a more welcoming entrance and a better customer flow to and through the renovated cafe, renamed The Atrium.

One strategy that operators use to attract new customers and satisfy existing ones is changing their menus. They might add a new item or introduce a new, trendy preparation. Or they might switch to an entirely new cuisine. The question is: How do these changes affect the back of the house? Does the kitchen have to adapt to produce the new features?

There’s a strong possibility, foodservice designers say, that the servery of the future won’t look exactly like it does today.

Antoinette “Toni” Watkins, MS, RDN, is the recipient of the 2021 Gold Plate Award presented by the International Foodservice Manufacturers Association. Watkins is system director of Food & Nutrition Services at Riverside Health System.

The Association for Healthcare Foodservice recognized the accomplishments and contributions of some of its members and vendor partners with a series of annual awards.

Healthcare foodservice operations continue to adjust to a recalibrated normal as states lift restrictions that were in place to slow the spread of COVID-19.

Like every other business, each facet of ours (healthcare foodservice) underwent radical changes with updated policies and practices as the pandemic stretched across the globe. It would be commonplace for one day’s updated policy to negate everything we put in place the day previous. The next day would also require recalculating and updating, feeding into a practice we called the pandemic pivot.

The owners of Metz Culinary Management recognized a need in Florida to provide meals to organizations and businesses that require large quantities of food, especially considering the significant growth in Florida’s senior population.

Intermountain Medical Center (IMC) serves as the flagship hospital for Intermountain Healthcare. In October 2020, the Murray, Utah, facility made the transition to room service style of feeding for patients from a more traditional tray service approach to patient feeding.

“We’re doing a cost analysis to decide if we need a preventive maintenance program and making extending equipment life a priority.”

MetroHealth Main Campus Medical Center, Cleveland

When the COVID-19 pandemic invaded the U.S., hospitals had to restructure their facilities to handle the infectious patients and close down of all nonessential units such as elective surgery. Foodservice responded with innovative solutions to the new patient censuses, fewer retail foodservice customers and changing staffing needs. Healthcare leaders also dealt with donations, community contributions and staffing.

Operators must remain ready to respond if they receive an influx of COVID-19-infected patients in the future.

Following her 15-year position as director of Food and Nutrition at Pottstown Memorial Medical Center in Pennsylvania, Mary Cooley, RD, turned her attention to senior care.

“Despite all the chaos, hospital patients with or without COVID-19 must receive food at least three times a day,” says Martha Rardin, MS, RD, CD, FAND, director of Nutrition and Dietetics and the diabetes coordinator, at Hendricks Regional Health in Danville, Ind.

Cafeteria and retail sales fell dramatically at most hospitals starting in mid-March. In mid-June when some hospitals resumed elective surgeries and more medical and administrative staff returned to working on-site, various facilities started to report an uptick in sales.

The Association for Healthcare Foodservice recognized the accomplishments of several of its members and business partners with a series of annual awards.

Bill Marks began his foodservice career early, working at an ice cream shop outside of Philadelphia at the age of 16. While in college, he became the student manager for campus foodservice operations. He also worked for contract food management companies for 20 years and learned to
manage large multiservice operations.

Martha Rardin has been in healthcare foodservice for more than four decades. As the foodservice director and dietitian manager for all of the Hendricks Regional Health facilities in suburban Indianapolis, she oversees a $3.5 million foodservice program, which produces about 1,300 meals per day and supports in-room dining, retail and catering programs. That includes about 50 meals per day for Hendricks’ senior center and another 130 to Meals on Wheels each week.

Retail, meal kits and wellness reign in healthcare foodservice.

Balancing customer satisfaction and the bottom line means operators walk a tightrope as they apply a cornucopia of ingenious solutions to persistent challenges.