How Financial Strategy Influences Hospital Foodservice Design

摘要

Reduce FTE's or seek the lowest Net Cost? The approach taken has real implications for hospital foodservice design. The way hospital administrators monitor and measure foodservice financial performance should have a very significant influence on the design of hospital foodservice departments, One common methodology is to focus on expenses with the primary objective being to reduce full-time equivalent employees (FTE's) and, to a lesser extent, the cost per meal-pri-marily food and labor. A second methodology is to focus on net cost. This approach basically focuses on cash and cash equivalent income from retail sales minus expenses, to yield a net cost figure which can food cost per meal or expenses per meal have a high probability of generating invalid comparisons. That's because, while there are standardized formula for calculating meal counts, meal count numbers are easily manipulated and often exaggerated.