June 05, 2001
Website:
http://www.lhsc.on.ca/foodserv/training.htm
E-mail: foodservices@lhsc.on.ca
Telephone: 1-877-919-9996
Hospital Shares Recipe for Success
(LONDON, Ontario) - The health services professionals gathered to hear how colleagues at the London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) are using the latest in research and technology are not discussing multiple organ transplant or robotic cardiac surgery.
The food service professionals attending the seminar "Menu for Change" have come to absorb lessons that have enabled LHSC's Food Services to improve customer satisfaction and product quality during a complex merger and subsequent restructuring -- while cutting costs 31 percent.
It's a recipe many health care organizations would like to emulate -- one LHSC wants to share.
"We feel we've been able to effectively manage substantive change," notes Deborah McKinley, LHSC's Manager, Food Services. "Having been successful in our initiatives, we wanted to share some of our key learnings, and the mistakes that we've made."
To that end, LHSC and Grande Cuisine Electro Caloric established the International Training Centre for food service professionals. Their seminar program peppers presentations on topics ranging from implementing advanced food service systems and computer automation with interactive learning opportunities: a question/answer period, and tours of a cook/chill, cook/freeze food production center, a centralized tray assembly/warewashing operation, and a new receiver site.
Judging by the rave reviews, conference organizers have prepared a satisfying course.
"The conference opened my mind to the available options," says Jeanette Beard, Supervisor of Food Services at Med Central Health Systems in Mansfield, Ohio.
"The experience provided very useful, practical knowledge for those of us in the thick of major implementations," adds another participant. "I had little knowledge when I came and much more by the end of day two."
From evaluations like these, it's clear "Menu for Change" is helping hospitals stay at the cutting edge of the quest to streamline costs and consolidate services, while providing nutritious, flavourful food to patients.
Upcoming seminar dates:
Oct. 17-19, 2001
Nov 28-30, 2001
