The Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center (FHCC) partnership with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Department of Defense (DoD) formed the nation's first single, fully integrated federal healthcare facility. In addition, the FHCC contains Naval Health Clinic Great Lakes and community-based outpatient clinics. In total, the FHCC cares for nearly 67,000 eligible active military members, their family members, military retirees and veterans each year.
Panelists at Datassential's Foodscape event offer tips and insights to improve off-premise food.
Keeping customer satisfaction high while keeping costs down challenges all health care dining professionals. At 652-resident Legacy Retirement Communities in Lincoln, Neb., Robert J. Darrah, CDM, CFP, CHC, director of Dining Services, tackled the seemingly contradictory expectations by transitioning his department to a scratch-preparation kitchen.
On-premise catering programs continue to evolve through partnerships with nontraditional venues, incorporating local and seasonal ingredients and utilizing more versatile equipment.
Many employees at outlying buildings at Centra Health in Virginia don't have access to on-site food venues. The nutrition services department sends a food truck to their locations. The mobile cafe resides at Virginia Baptist Hospital, two miles away from the "mother ship" hospital Lynchburg General. Virginia Baptist's campus provides a designated place to park, clean and stock the truck.
Balancing customer satisfaction and the bottom line means operators walk a tightrope as they apply a cornucopia of ingenious solutions to persistent challenges.
Taking a wellness and lifestyle approach to healthcare, 315-bed Sidney & Lois Eskenazi Hospital in Indianapolis, part of Eskenazi Health, entered the grocery business in June 2017. The Fresh For You Market at Eskenazi Health, a 450-square-foot space, attaches to the Ingram Micro Mobility Marketplace, the main casual-dining operation on the Eskenazi Health campus. Customers enter through the Ingram Micro Mobility Marketplace or an outside entrance. Both operations open at 6 a.m. and close at 2 a.m. daily.
A complete renovation of the kitchen, servery, dining room, executive meeting room and a grab-and-go operation at a San Antonio military venue.
Danville, Penn.-based Geisinger Health System's foodservice department's introduction of Healthy Selections+ (HS+) not only encourages customers to eat healthfully but introduces them to options many have never experienced.
Smoothies (and their sibling juices) have taken over a new corner in the health arena as a way for consumers to pack more nutrients into their day.
Cost containment initiatives at 160-bed Hendricks Regional Health in Danville, Ind., forced Martha Rardin, MSM, RD, CD, FAND, director, Nutrition and Dietetics, to make a tough decision. "We had to make staff reductions so I voluntarily reduced the cook-to-order station's operation from daily to about once a week so we wouldn't have to cut back on patient services," she says.
With real estate growing tighter, more restaurants and foodservice operators are carving out space on their rooftops to grow vegetables, fruits, herbs — and even manage beehives.
Sitting on the western edge of campus, a 2.2-acre garden at the 55-year-old St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., serves as a teaching tool for patients and their families. The garden also provides food for the hospital's culinary operations and serves as a venue for fundraising events such as the St. Jude Garden Harvest.
Healthcare foodservice directors apply strategies in response to their administrators' mandates. Those strategies reach far into all facets of their department, including patient services, retail operations and labor management. They must find a balance between keeping customer satisfaction high while containing costs to meet healthcare executives' financial performance goals.
Display cooking brings lively interaction to the JPS Health Network in Fort Worth, Texas. The JPS Cafeteria brims with activity as staff prepare stir fry and lo mein on the Mongolian grill, made-to-order pasta dishes on an induction cooktop, and bake pizza in a brick oven. "We want to move away from all stereotypes of hospital food being just ordinary and make it exceptional," says Neal Lavender, executive director of Food and Nutrition Services.
