As one of Oregon’s most prominent healthcare providers, Legacy Emanuel Medical Center’s Nutrition Services team was ready and eager to undergo a complete renovation in order to continue providing the community with top-notch foodservice. Prior to implementing a comprehensive room service program, the foodservice division had to create a game plan for several components such as floor plan expansion, circular workflow layout, new kitchen equipment, foodservice software technology and staff growth.  Any hospital that has ventured this sort of renovation can agree that each of these components cohesively impact the deployment of such a major undertaking.

The following are 10 noteworthy outcomes that resulted from Legacy Emanuel’s renovation:

1. Ability to accurately track and prepare approximately 1,000 patient meals daily
2. Guarantee meal delivery within 45-minutes
3. Replaced the retherm process with a made-from-scratch meal production
4. Maintain a short-order line that completes orders cooked-to-order , or as Legacy likes to put it “a la minute”
5. Provide unconventional and unique options to the room service program that caters to consumer demands (i.e. – espresso beverages)
6. Offer menu options that feature seasonal dishes with local ingredients
7. Reduced the number of meals conforming to dietary restrictions from 21 to 7
8. Raised foodservice satisfaction scores from 3.6 to 4.3
9. Generate zero plate waste on returned trays
10. Year 1 food cost savings = $200,000!

What’s inspiring about the success of Legacy Emanuel’s transformation is their ability to complete the project in accordance to their targeted 18-month window, within their budgeted goal of $4.5 million, and without disruption of their day-to-day meal service process! For an in-depth look at Legacy Emanuel’s foodservice extreme make-over, please reference the following article from the winter 2011 issue of Focus on Healthcare Foodservice: http://bit.ly/xxeGzQ