Leaving Tray Line Behind: A Proposal For Hybrid Hospital Foodservice

摘要

At Valley Hospital in Las Vegas, Nevada, the economic recession is as visible as anywhere else in the United States. A lack of paying patients equates to forced reductions in labor and increased productivity metric mandates. In the foodservice area, antiquated technology limits productivity in conducting tray line food service delivery. A new tray line system would need to be considerably faster while using less employees and moving parts to maximize efficiency, effectively doing much more with far less. There are two main systems of food service as part of the patient experience; tray line and room service. Both systems have their benefits and individual costs coupled with necessary labor. Room service is much more labor and cost intensive but typically yields the all important higher patient satisfaction scores while the majority of hospitals employ the tray line system. Using empirical research, this paper will explore variations to tray line setup, personnel and equipment usage to find a better way to conduct business at Valley Hospital. This paper will investigate comparable undertakings through trade journals and peer reviewed papers along with information from interviews with peer contacts in health care food service to aide in the creation of this new method.