A Guide to Healthcare Food Service (Part 1)

Introduction

In the United States alone there are over 6,000 Hospitals and 65,000 Skilled Nursing Facilities, all of which have the same goal of providing high-quality and nutritious meals for the patients, staff, and visitors they serve daily. This sector can often be overlooked, but with increased demand and expectation for a higher level of guest satisfaction, Healthcare Food Service has quietly become one of the most important sectors of the food service industry. According to many national studies, over 40% of consumers consider food options when deciding on their healthcare options.

One of the most important ways that Healthcare Food Service can maintain the highest level of food quality and ensure patient satisfaction is to invest in the right equipment. Choosing the right equipment and ensuring the operator has been properly trained is essential to providing the patients, staff, and guests with the highest quality food service.

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Healthcare Foodservice Styles

There are many different layouts possible when it comes to designing kitchens. However, healthcare food service tends to fall into one of four categories:

Tray Line Service Pod Service Room Service Satellite Service

In this article, we will cover traditional Tray Line Service and Pod Service styles commonly used in healthcare facilities and how FWE’s commercial kitchen equipment can provide the best solutions for each. (We will discuss the other two styles, Room Service and Satellite Service, in Part 2!)

Healthcare food service is unique in the fact that nutritional requirements and dietary restrictions are prioritized over flavor and appearance. However, this shouldn’t encourage facilities to neglect the fact that the quality of the food they provide can have an extraordinary effect on both their patients and staff. In recent studies, datassential found that 66% of patients said that food offerings were important to their overall care experience and 80% of long-term care/senior living residents agreed.

Now that we have looked at some statistics about the importance of food service, let’s review what is still one of the most popular methods: Tray Line Service.

Tray Line Service

What is Tray Line Service?

The Traditional Tray Line has been the standard food service model for most institutional types of food service, especially in the hospital and healthcare setting for decades. It’s a tried-and-true service model and can be structured in a way that best fits the size of the operation and the number of patients/residents being fed on any particular day. This service model is easily adaptable to any size operation and lends itself well to strict oversight by Dietitians, Doctors, and other Dietary professionals.

Pros

One of the main advantages of the tray line method is that it allows for efficient and quick food service. This is especially important in a busy healthcare facility where time is of the essence, and it is critical for patients to be on a strict meal schedule. The tray line method also allows for easy portion control and nutrition tracking. Each “stop” of the tray line is “manned or womanned” with staff to ensure the proper component is added or omitted. The staff will also control portion size in correlation to the Doctor/Dietician’s recommendation. (Check out this video to see one in action)

Cons

However, there are some drawbacks to the tray line method. Some patients may feel limited in their food options, although most of the time the options are predetermined by the Doctor or Dietician. The lack of menu variety and stricter times of meal service can certainly have a negative effect on a patient’s experience at a facility. Tray line service typically runs very efficiently but can become bogged down and bottlenecked. This can cause delay in meal delivery and potentially less favorable food. This makes having the right holding and serving equipment to maximize food quality vs. time vital.

Summary

Overall, the tray line method of food service in hospitals and healthcare facilities is a tried-and-true, efficient way to provide patients with food and ensure that they are getting the nutrients they need. Tray lines often operate at strictly regulated times to ensure patients’ meals are available at the specific increments set by The Doctor/Dietician. However, it is important to also consider the needs and preferences of individual patients that may be on far less restrictive diets and patients that prefer to have their meals at “off-peak hours” and find ways to accommodate those as well.

Pod Service

What is Pod Service?

Pod Service has been one of the fastest-growing styles of healthcare food service over the past decade, and a significant contributor to this is due to its similarity to the Tray Line Service. Facilities that utilize Tray Line Service can easily re-tool their tray assembly areas with minimal capital investment.

Essentially, Pod Service consists of dividing workstations into several “Pods” instead of having one make line like in Tray Line Service. Each pod typically comprises one serving station with an activator; plates, domes, and lids; air screen refrigerator units; hot holding cabinets; and two starter stations. These pods are smaller, dedicated, and self-contained areas where a worker assembling the tray has everything within arm’s reach and can focus on the task at hand. Once the worker completes the tray, it’s loaded into a transport cart and once the cart is full, it is delivered to patients.

Pros

By dividing the make line into Pods, operators eliminate a key drawback of traditional Tray Line Service – Bottlenecking. Due to having their own workstation, or “Pod”, workers no longer rely on others down the line to complete their tasks. They have all the items they need around them and can complete the tray quicker and have it on its way to the patient in a timely manner. In addition to this benefit, generally less labor is required, and fewer hands touch each tray. This is great for creating a sanitary environment, reducing cross-contamination of sensitive food items, and decreasing labor costs.

Cons

To no surprise, there aren’t major cons to this method of food service, hence why many facilities have been transitioning to this style over the past decade. However, similar to the Tray Line method, menu variety and service times are often restricted which can contribute to a lesser patient experience. It is important to note that the initial set-up and training might take some time. Be sure that there is a detailed plan in place that includes purchasing the right equipment and training the staff to ensure your operation will be successful.

Summary

Efficiency is key with the Pod Service food service style due to the smaller, specialized, and self-sufficient design. Any operator willing to invest in high-quality, mobile, and flexible equipment can easily shift from a traditional Tray Line Service to a Pod Service and increase the productivity of their operations and at the same time cut labor costs.

Recommended Equipment for Trayline and Pod Foodservice

Holding Cabinets

To alleviate bottlenecks and streamline service times, heated holding cabinets allow kitchens to batch-cook large quantities of food ahead of time and then hold these products while maintaining their “Just-cooked” quality. The type of food and the duration that it is needed to be held should be taken into consideration when deciding which holding cabinet is the right choice. Popular models in this industry are the UHS, MTU, and PHTT Series (To learn more about the differences between these series check out THIS article)

Serving Wells

Once the food is prepared, it needs to be placed in a central location to begin plating. Serving wells, both heated and non-heated, are essential to creating an assembly line process that greatly increases the speed and accuracy at which trays are assembled.

A good example of a serving well ideal for this application would be the HLC-6W6-7H-42-DRN. This unit comes equipped with 6 heated wells and 6 heated compartments that can hold up to forty-two standard 12” x 20” pans and operated by heating up water in the wells to produce a gentle, uniform heat to maintain products’ optimal quality. There is also a “dry” model that operates without water if it is not accessible. These are just two of many serving well models we offer, so be sure to check out the rest of them here

Air Screens

Quick access to refrigerated products is an important feature of a Tray Make Line service that should not be overlooked. There are many issues that a standard refrigerator might cause. Some of these are leaving the door open too long and wasting energy, frequent opening and closing of the door that may slow down service, constant touching of doors and handles causing an increased likelihood of contamination or germ spread, and others. An effectively placed Air Screen, such as the R-AS-10, can eliminate many of these issues by providing energy-efficient refrigeration for extended periods of time without having to close the door. Now operators can simply reach in and get the items they need without the hassle and worry of opening and shutting the door. Learn more about our Air Screen options here

ASU-10

R-AS-10

Talk To Our Professionals

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