Robin Ashton, in How You Can Help Operators brings out some great points, borrowed from Doug Fryett. I’d like to chime in on this one, too.
What’s the point of food service equipment and technologies? It’s to help all of us in the food service world take better care of customers. Fryett lists areas where the right choices can make or break success: food safety, sustainability, workflow optimization, productivity enhancement, standards compliance… even creating a worker-friendly environment.
So what’s the value of technology? Integrated food and nutrition software feeds into just all of those essentials in a hospital food service operation.
Want to improve standards compliance? Why not automate the mission-critical quality and safety processes, like multiple diet prescriptions, or food allergy checking on a patient menu? Or automate nutrition screening to customized standards? These are solutions that improve workflow, boost productivity, and improve quality of patient care.
Want to engage workers and hand them the power to deliver excellence? We see this paradigm shift in implementation of room service systems in more hospitals every year. But… Want to implement room service without driving up costs and expanding staffing? Technology steps up to the plate again. Systems like diet office call center support, real-time communications, tray tracking, patient ID verification—and behind-the-scenes diet histories and nutrition care records—make these systems possible even within lean budgets.
If you’re digging into room service, I recommend the Room Service Checkup as a free planning guide. Hospital meal service is not all about technology. But technology can be the silent “Red Bull” powering basic systems we need in order to take care of business, which really means: taking care of patients.