Associate Director Jim McGrody has worked to establish a series of self-branded, self-operated retail concepts that emphasize quality ingredients and fresh preparation.

So Mojica and Associate Director of Production Jim McGrody worked to develop a new menu based on standard selections that are still nutritious but look and taste more like restaurant dishes.

Meanwhile, for those on restricted diets, McGrody developed an entirely different menu rather than simply modifying the standard selections to meet the low-sodium or low-fat requirements. Instead, the new modified diet menu has dishes specifically designed to meet the restrictions by using ingredients like herbs and spices to add flavor. For low-fat diets, UNCH menus dishes that are naturally low in fat rather than watered down versions of dishes that are usually higher in fat.

The change was made possible by the implementation of a new nutrition analysis and production control system that gives the department greater flexibility in designing its menus.

The new menu debuted in April 2007 along with a whole new patient dining production and delivery system. To foster greater connection between the nutrition services department and its customers in the wards, Mojica convinced the hospital to allow his staff to deliver trays and take orders directly at bedsides.

Department employees were recruited to serve as patient nutrition representatives (PNRs) responsible for taking orders directly from each patient, assembling that order and then taking it to them.

Connecting With Patients

The order for each meal is taken when the previous meal is delivered, ensuring a greater likelihood of satisfaction. “Previously,” says Barbara Lusk, associate director of clinical nutrition/patient service director, “patients had to fill out their menu forms the previous day. Now, with less time between putting in the order and getting the meal, patients are more likely to get what they really feel like eating.”

The PNRs now take their orders on penpad computers that download them electronically to the central production kitchen. There, the old trayline has been jettisoned in favor of six tray assembly stations where servers plate entrees per each PNR's direction.

Freshly made burrito sandwiches and salads from Bandaleros, and freshly made deli sandwiches pack in the lunch crowds in the Corner Cafe.

The PNRs then finish each tray, using their knowledge of “their” patients to customize each (within diet parameters). The PNRs then take the assembled trays up to their wards in temp control carts and serve them to each patient, taking the order for the next meal at the same time.

The new bedside order taking has already resulted in a reduction in waste and, along with the new menus, catapulted patient satisfaction from the 11th to the 75th percentile (92nd percentile for those on regular diets) on the Press Gainey scale.

Mojica says he will eventually evolve patient dining to a room service system once the new cancer hospital and patient tower are finished. That project will give him another kitchen, one designed specifically for room service production, something not feasible with the current kitchen. He says the Womens, Childrens and Cancer hospitals are “great candidates” for room service, while the other facilities will remain with the bedside order taking system, using the current central kitchen as the center of operations.

Retail Boom

The patient satisfaction score increases are certainly dramatic, but not any more so than the explosion in retail sales, which grew more than 50 percent in the past year, from $4.3 million to $6.8 million. That is even more remarkable when one considers that the increases were generated even as the department converted from the outside management concepts to the beginnings of a self-operated retail environment.

The first in-house operation, a small temporary location with two stations appropriately called the Corner Café, opened late last year. Though it is only open for breakfast and lunch and has almost no seating, Corner Café generates some $4,500 a day. It includes a made-to-order deli and self-developed branded Mexican concept called Bandaleros that Mojica freely admits is based on the popular Chipotle, Qdoba and Moe's national chains. Like the deli, it offers to-order burrito sandwiches and salads for which customers can choose their own ingredients.

Fresh Is Key

The other current retail outlet at UNCH is a seven-station food court located on a mezzanine above the childrens hospital's main concourse. Opened this past February as the Terrace Café, it features a series of self-branded concepts, is open around the clock and serves up to 3,000 customers a day.