Kitchen Overhaul Brings Fresh Meals to Hospital Patients
by Communications and Engagement
For nearly a year, the hospital kitchen implemented a cook-serve method, moving away from the cook-chill method, says Colin Koivula, operations coordinator with the hospital. “Knowing that nutrition and food are such an important part of patient recovery and the patient experience, we wanted to make some improvements, and this was just sort of the first step and the biggest step to make those."
The regional hospital has beefed up its kitchen service.
For nearly a year, the hospital kitchen implemented a cook-serve method, moving away from the cook-chill method, says Colin Koivula, operations coordinator with the hospital.
“Knowing that nutrition and food are such an important part of patient recovery and the patient experience, we wanted to make some improvements, and this was just sort of the first step and the biggest step to make those,” he told Newswatch.
Koivula said the kitchen has always cooked its food from scratch, but the way it preserves food has changed.
The cook-chill method involves kitchen staff preparing food in advance, chilling it to an appropriate temperature, and reheating it a day or two later. Now, patients are getting their food right after it’s cooked, he explained.
Stephanie Rowan, area general manager for Sodexo Canada, said, “We worked with the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre and Sodexo team, and collectively this is how we were able to make the move because they were able to use Sodexo expertise for what they do in other hospitals and what we can do here at the Hospital.”
Sodexo Canada oversees the nutrition and food service program in hospitals across the country.
Sodexo, the Thunder Bay Health Science Foundation, and the hospital worked collaboratively to overhaul the kitchen, buying new equipment and instruments for the line, as well as tray carts for service delivery, Rowan said.
“It’s changed basically everything. Certainly, the kitchen wasn’t set up for it. We didn’t have the equipment for it. All of our staffing, all of our roles, have changed, so I mean, right from the bottom up, it’s changed the whole way through,” Koivula said.
With the switchover to the new method, he said it’s just as labour-intensive as before. The real change is time sensitivity, especially when cooking for patients with food allergies and dietary restrictions.
“There’s just so many variations of that that it’s just not as easy as just putting out 350, 370 meals. It has to be like I say, different. It might be minced or pureed or no sugar or no added salt, all sorts of things in there that make a diet and make a meal slightly different for each patient,” Koivula said.
Even the menu has been revamped. The kitchen has condensed its three-week rotating menu to a seven-day rotating menu.
“The menu looks hopefully like what you’d be eating at home. We’re trying to give a nutritious, comforting, well-balanced three meals a day,” Koivula said.
The staff are cooking up further changes to the menu.
“We’re also looking at seasonal menus. In addition to that how do we change up the menus? Maybe there’s something Thunder Bay local that we could add to it. Can we do something with the pediatric-type menu? And then, we also look at patient preferences…the nice thing about being with Sodexo as well because we’re in the other hospitals, so we have a wide variety of menus that we can lean on,” Rowan said.
She said they have seen a significant change in patient satisfaction since adopting the change.
“Overall, just being able to cook in real time and deliver the meals has shown an improvement in patient experience,” she said.
