At Your Room Service
Switch to Room-Service Approach Results in Greater Patient and Employee Satisfaction, More Revenue and Less Waste
Atrium Medical Center in Southwest Ohio is a replacement facility for the former Middletown Regional Hospital. The hospital has come a long way since Middletown Regional opened its doors in 1917, with 28 beds and seven employees. Now, the medical center is the epitome of a family-friendly hospital. It has 250 beds and nearly 2,000 employees, not to mention 24-hour visitation, private rooms, movies-on-demand, Wi-Fi and valet parking.
One of the most significant changes was in the nutrition services group. Prior to the new hospital, nutrition services provided rethermalized food to patients. Breakfast, lunch and dinner were served at the same time every day, and each meal consisted of two menu options, a main or an alternate selection. Dining options for patients' guests were the cafeteria or a non-selective tray in the patient room.
As part of the new hospital, Atrium switched to room-service dining. Patients can now order meals when they are ready and select from more than 70 menu items. Meals are delivered within 45 minutes after ordering.
"One of the problems we faced with our rethermalization process was delivering meals to a patient's room when they were out for testing," says Greg Neumann, director of nutrition. "Patients could be out for hours. They'd return to a cold tray or sometimes no tray at all if staff had already bused the room, so we'd deliver another tray. This resulted in a significant amount of wasted food, not to mention poor customer service."
Neumann says nutrition services staff were hesitant to interact with patients because when the conversation turned to foodservice, they would get an earful. The opening of the new hospital was the perfect time to change the hospital's approach to foodservice. One of the first things Neumann did was to update the foodservice equipment to make room service possible.
"Not only did we rethink how food was delivered to patients, but we also had to rethink how it was prepared," explains Neumann. "Since room service is prepared to order, we added a grill, char grill, additional burners, undercounter refrigerators and a pasta cooker. We also added a Hobart FT900 Warewasher and tray accumulator. This equipment helped us increase speed and efficiency, which is important in a room-service environment."
Tremendous Reception
Neumann says the feedback has been tremendous. After implementing the change, Neumann conducted a patient satisfaction survey. He reports that 95 percent of the responses rate the meal service "very good" or "excellent."
"Patients are ecstatic," says Neumann. "They brag about the food to their family and visitors. That's not typical in a hospital."
The financial benefits have also been significant.
"We've saved about $200,000 a year by transitioning to room service," explains Neumann. "We used to waste 73,000 trays every year because we delivered meals to patients who were not in their room. Now we serve patients when they are ready, so food doesn't sit in an empty room. In addition, since patients order what they want, there is less unwanted food to discard."
The switch to room service has also increased revenue at the medical center by $2,000 per month because guests are encouraged to order room service and eat alongside their loved ones. In the past, guests could order food only in the cafeteria or consume a surplus non-selective tray.
Neumann explains the change to room service has also resulted in the highest employee satisfaction rate within the hospital. The turnover rate in nutrition services has also dropped dramatically. Room service was just part of the foodservice improvements. Atrium also opened an upscale coffee shop and a physicians' dining room, the latter being open essentially 24 hours per day.
One unexpected benefit has been an increase in patient contact. Since the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, nutrition services staff welcome the opportunity to interact with patients about the menu or anything else on a patient's mind. It has also led to more rounding by the nutrition services leadership team. "Rounding" is important because management can interact with patients to gauge their opinions on care and staff and make sure they have everything they need.
"Nutrition services is very visible because we are in and out of patient rooms at least three times a day," says Neumann. "Being more accessible to patients helps us deliver on our ultimate goal to bend over backwards for our customers. Regardless if they need a meal, a pillow or just some-one to talk to, we are here for them."
You can't measure that.
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