Room service, and no tipping

Room service, and no tipping
Hospital meal plan gives patients what they want, when they want it. The big news? 'It's hot, and it's good'

By Robert Channick Special to the Tribune

September 2, 2009

Hoping to prove that getting well and being well-fed are not mutually exclusive, a suburban hospital has rolled out hotel-style room service, with made-to-order meals served all day long.

Casting off the reputation for bland, institutional dining, Sherman Hospital in Elgin has joined a growing number of health care facilities to focus on its culinary offerings as a means to improving patient satisfaction.

"I think hospital food service is definitely getting a much better reputation," said Kathy Hammerschmidt, the food and nutrition manager at Sherman. "It's not as bad as what people thought it was."

From light and fluffy eggs served with bacon and cheese on a toasted English muffin, to roasted pork loin accented by spiced apples, the room-service menu reads like one at a vacation resort. The service includes a personal host or hostess, half-hour delivery from 6:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. and a computerized interface with each patient's dietary restrictions.

The weeks-old program has already garnered high marks from patients.

"I was pleasantly surprised," said Allen Jones, 52, a retired postal worker from Elgin, who was contentedly munching on a cheeseburger platter Saturday afternoon after kidney dialysis as part of his treatment for diabetes. "I call down and the people downstairs are very courteous, and within 15, 20 minutes, they've got your food upstairs to you. And it's hot, and it's good."

Restaurant-style room service was introduced about a decade ago and is slowly gaining traction, with about 25 percent of hospitals across the country adopting the more patient-centered approach to dining, according to officials.

Under the old model, food prepared in bulk quantities is shipped around the hospital in massive carts at set times, regardless of the patient's appetite, preference or availability.

"If a tray got up there and the patient ended up going for a test, you'd have to order another tray," said Hammerschmidt. "This way, the patient can order it when they get back and it's nice and hot. It works out pretty well."

Appetites can be fleeting for cancer patients and others undergoing invasive treatments, according to officials. Under the old system, if their hunger window didn't correspond to the food service, they simply didn't eat.

For some patients, missing a hospital meal was not always a bad thing, something the health care industry hopes to change with the new restaurant-style model.

"What we're seeing in health care is an amazing advancement of the quality and creativity of the food service. We've exploded the myth of hospital food," said Kris Schroeder, president of the Association for Healthcare Foodservice.

While the new model is more labor intensive and therefore more expensive, it does bring some efficiencies to defray additional costs, Schroeder said.

"This type of model decreases the amount of food that's wasted because people don't typically order what they don't want," she said. "In the more traditional model, we send folks a balanced meal, and they sometimes might want only the soup."

Whether food will play a role in where patients decide to undergo a medical procedure remains to be seen.

"It can be a differentiating point for a hospital," Schroeder said. "I don't know that it's going to be the decision-making parameter."

For Jones, a former football player and avid cook, being able to order baked chicken, Jell-O and brown rice on a whim has proved a meaningful part of his recovery.

"It makes you feel like you've got some control of your life," he said. "It makes you feel that you're important to them. If I feel like I'm important to them, then I get better faster, and I'm ready to go home."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chicago/chi-health-hospital-food-02-sep02,0,1945648.story