Introduction
Your Food Service Department is one of the largest cost centers within your facility. Are you getting what you pay for? Is it being managed efficiently? Are you providing the most nutritional meals at the best cost? Are you meeting budgetary goals on food and labor? Are your residents happy with the foods they are served? Can you confidently say that you are providing nutritionally adequate and appropriate meals? Are your residents eating enough to maintain healthy weights? Is your dietary department ready for survey?
Problem Statement
Food Service is a labor intensive department with time sensitive tasks which are usually performed by low skilled staff members either manually or using computerized systems which only manage bits and pieces of important regulatory information. With incomplete information, food service workers are often required to interpret residents’ preferences as well as their therapeutic diet requirements, resulting in residents receiving foods they do not like, cannot eat, or are not allowed to have.
Menus, recipes and diet orders which have been approved or ordered are not necessarily being served. Reports needed for regulatory compliance are often not available, lack necessary information, or are not indicative of actual practice within the department. Furthermore, estimated food and labor budgets may be exceeded due to overproduction and waste, basing costs on outdated prices and/or duplication of tasks.
Such operations in your Food Service Department can breed dissatisfied residents and family members, elevate liability risks, and increase departmental food and labor costs. In addition, the Food Service department becomes nonmarketable despite the huge portion of the budget it represents.
All of these issues can be overcome with the implementation of Food Service Management Software.
Previous Options
Most facilities, at one time or another, have depended on re-usable plastic tray cards. These cards were hand written with information for all meals on one card. Staff members were required to figure out what was to be served to the residents based on the likes/dislikes and diet/texture information written on the card. The cards had to be washed, sanitized, sorted and frequently replaced. Other tasks such as weight tracking, determining the amount of specific foods to prepare and how to prepare them, menu planning, nutritional analysis, grocery forecasting, etc. were done by hand using educated guesses. If key personnel were unexpectedly absent, daily operations often became crisis issues.
Although some facilities continue to use the re-usable card system, very basic and often “home-grown” computer systems have been developed due to the problems experienced with sanitizing and keeping the hand written cards current and readable. These systems go a step further, providing disposable tray tickets that are printed clearly and more easily updated, but they still require staff members to interpret which foods are to be served based on the limited information printed on the ticket. And since these only address limited areas, most other tasks continue to be performed manually or in multiple unrelated systems, requiring duplication of work and reliance on key staff members for what could be routine tasks.
Solution
With the advent of more powerful computer hardware and improved software capabilities, Food Service Management Software Providers, like SureQuest Systems, Inc., have been able to develop software specifically designed to meet the needs of today’s long term care Food Service departments. These systems should provide one consolidated solution for resident tracking; menu management, including corresponding recipes and nutritional analysis; production; purchasing; costing; and inventory functionality.
Effective Food Service Management Software solutions should generate resident specific tray menus listing actual foods to be served based on the diet order and preferences entered into the software. To shorten serving time, these tray menus should also be printed in the order to be served. For residents who are allowed to choose their foods on a daily basis, selective menus should be generated, listing only food choices appropriate for their diet order.
Comprehensive resident tracking is integral to efficient software. Features should include methods for recording dislikes, specific food substitutions and custom menu requests, as well as the ability to incorporate adaptive devices, tray ticket notes, and meal delivery areas variable by meal and by day. The ability to track resident weights is also imperative. Weight tracking should identify not only 30, 90 and 180 day weight changes but also the percentage of weight change. Reports with weight status alerts and individual graphs of trends compared to goals should be available for monitoring and care planning.
Software solutions should lend to planning menus which are nutritionally adequate and are compliant with diet parameters for specific diet types as spelled out in the accepted diet manual for an individual facility. Real time nutritional analysis is an important factor that guides the menu planning and provides indicators when nutritional goals are not met.
By integrating menus and resident information, the software should be able to generate production summaries with specific amounts of each food to be produced, recipes corresponding to these production numbers, and grocery lists that specify how much of which food items need to be ordered to prepare these planned menus for the current census. In addition, the software solution should provide snack/nourishment lists and labels, diet Spreadsheets, posting Menus, and Nutritional Analysis by menu day/week/cycle. Such reports are needed for daily operations, as well as regulatory requirements.
Essential for cost control is the ability to import grocery vendor product-price guides on a regular basis so that Menu costs per meal/day/week/cycle for each diet are based on up-to-date pricing obtained from all vendors used. Perpetual and physical inventory options should both be available to aid in cost control measures.
Importantly, the software should be developed using input from food service professionals, who have experience in the environments in which the software will be used. A knowledgeable and dedicated support staff should be available to handle emergency, as well as routine, technical and functional issues. The software company should be dedicated to staying on the cutting edge of technology and should offer updated functionality to meet the needs of the ever-evolving healthcare industry.
Reasons to Implement Food Service Software
A Food Service Management Software system is sure to improve operations within the dietary department. At least five benefits are realized with the implementation of a comprehensive system such as SureQuest’s Three Squares.
1. Improve Resident Satisfaction
As mealtimes are so important to residents, they are happy when they receive foods they like and have requested. Using computer generated resident specific tray menus, they receive the right foods the first time and do not have to wait for a replacement tray or additional items while those around them are eating. Using Three Squares, even the most discerning resident can be catered to, and the most demanding family member will be pleased. The software also offers the opportunity to implement an easily managed selective menu. Even though the same foods or a similar menu may be offered, a value is perceived when the residents are given the ability to choose their own meals. Also, appropriately quantified recipes lead to producing consistent meal items, ensuring the foods the residents receive are the foods they expect and enjoy.
2. Control Costs
By generating accurate production summaries, based on resident preferences integrated with facility menus, the staff knows exactly how much of each item to produce, reducing overproduction associated with guessing and padding. These reports ensure that all residents will be fed without producing leftovers which will either be eaten by employees or, oftentimes, wasted. Adding recipes, quantified to the number of servings needed, makes it easy to produce only the amount that will be served, therefore, reducing the food cost per meal overall.
Electronically created grocery lists, which project the amount of raw food products needed to produce meals, snacks and custom resident requests for a specific time period will enable the staff to purchase just enough groceries to feed the residents without purchasing excess foods that may spoil. This grocery list is used to help select the lowest cost food that meets facility quality specifications. Menus can even be planned to be within a specific “per patient day” (ppd) budget based on current costs of foods.
Furthermore, the ability to maintain inventory provides a tool to monitor what is expected to be on hand versus what is actually in the storeroom, allowing tracking and analysis of losses.
3. Increase Efficiency
Computerization with Three Squares eliminates repetitive tasks and unnecessary duplication of work. Changes to resident food service information and menus are made one time in one system, and these changes flow throughout all reports generated. Tray Menus, Snack Labels, Production Summaries, Nutritional Analysis, Purchase Orders, etc. are generated automatically, replacing hours of manual labor daily.
By eliminating the decision-making at trayline or during serving, the speed and accuracy of service is increased. With efficient serving, the staff can spend more time passing trays and monitoring dining services which shifts focus to resident needs. Nursing staff time needed to request replacement trays or deal with resident complaints is also reduced or eliminated, saving nursing, as well as food service, hours.
4. Control Liability / Be Survey-Ready
Regulatory standards demand proper documentation, including diet Spreadsheets, posting Menus, Nutritional Analysis of menus, and HACCP ready Recipes. These reports are easily printed using Three Squares and are automatically updated with any changes made. This ensures that reports reflect current operations within the dietary department.
Tray Menus, which display exactly which foods to serve, guarantee that each resident receives only foods allowed on the therapeutic or texture modified diet ordered by the physician. Also, serving foods the resident likes or requests helps to counteract weight loss issues. Weight tracking reports are available for monitoring and alerting the staff of the need for immediate intervention. Action to prevent weight loss with associated documentation helps to prevent citations.
Despite maintaining confidential resident information in a high traffic department, Three Squares complies with HIPAA guidelines with the ability to restrict access to resident information by user name and password protection.
5. Provide Marketing Opportunities
As potential residents and family members make the difficult decision to transition to a long-term care facility or to determine which facility is the best fit, maintaining quality of life, including quality of meal service, is certainly an important factor. Three Squares provides clear, professional reports, such as the weekly menu, weight tracking graphs and nutritional analysis for varied diet and texture combinations. All of these reports can be viewed by prospective residents and families, as well as potential investors. These reports can be incorporated into the facility marketing package to let the target audience know that special attention is shown to meal service and to the nutritional health of the clientele.
Summary
Facilities that implement Food Service Management Software realize benefits such as improved resident satisfaction, cost containment, increased efficiencies, controlled liability, and added marketing opportunities. SureQuest’s Three Squares family of software is a leader in the Food Service Software market. Developed by Registered Dietitians and Certified Dietary Managers teamed with software programmers, Three Squares provides the functionality needed in healthcare food service departments and is continuously updated based upon user input and the changing needs of the healthcare industry. SureQuest’s dedicated team of dietitians, certified trainers and support staff provide the services and assistance needed to enable even the most technology-leery client to successfully implement a computerized dietary management system which helps facilities get more out of what they are already paying for within the Food Service department.
Alma Sudderth, MS, RD, CSG, LD
American Dietetic Association
Dallas Dietetic Association
Consultant Dietitians in Health Care Facilities (CD-HCF)
Texas CD-HCF -Past Chair
North Central Texas Association of Healthcare Food Service Administrators (NCT AHFSA
)
Dianne Perez, MS, RD/LD
American Dietetic Association
Dallas Dietetic Association CD-HCF
Texas CD-HCF -Secretary
NCT AHFSA – Recording Secretary
Kacey Iacomini, RD/LD
American Dietetic Association
Texas CD-HCF
Posted in:Automating Foodservice, February 2011, Food & Operation Costs, Menus, Quality of Life
