Marty Rothschild

Vice President of Sales & Marketing

I suppose that in any economic downturn, it is only natural to scrutinize your financial situation, both business and personal, a little more closely. I find that some of the more meaningful conversations take place during these adverse times when we earnestly examine where and how we spend our money. Expenses are reviewed with a sense of urgency, and capital expenditures are evaluated and prioritized to see if they are absolutely, positively necessary.

If you haven’t yet taken a little financial self-examination, I’m sure that you can sense that the days of “zero-based budgeting” are coming soon to a kitchen near you; trade-offs and compromises will closely follow as you answer what is needed and what is really, really needed.

When it comes to meal delivery in a hospital, I’ve seen and participated in these periodic exercises and editions of "what's important." There have been the transient color choices (by the way we have some new ones), the decision to buy convenience items, to produce for inventory or to offer different menu options as the merry-go-round of “what’s important” today goes around.

You would be surprised what comes in and out of favor and then rolls around again. Usually, when it does come back, it will be with a slightly different twist, just like hemlines and neckties.

So what is really important for meal delivery in hospitals? My top five:

  • Treat patients like people, respect their time, privacy and situation . . . be empathetic.
  • Interact with your patients re: what they will be eating, what they like, can eat, etc .
  • Provide what the patient requested; accurately, timely and with a smile.
  • Make sure that the food is served at the proper temperature – hot food hot – cold food cold. We can help you here!!
  • When the meal is picked up, look at what’s left to see if the meal was consumed. Based on this feedback make inquiries, adjustments and possibly apologies.

From my experience, this is what is important and should be the focus of patient meal service. It may be delivered by a host, a nurse, in a room service program or cook chill . . . but I think the important points are the five above.

Strangely enough, most of these five will not cost you much, and are less costly than if they are neglected.

Take care of these five and you should see that important patient satisfaction rating reflect an upturn no matter what the economy is doing; and, I think that you’ll see that it will increase employee satisfaction as well. It’s amazing how these feed off of each other in good times and bad.


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Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children implements a room service program with Aladdin’s Heat On Demand.

At Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children, the challenge was to get children healthy enough to go home. Aladdin’s Heat On Demand Ultra meal delivery system helped the foodservice staff make meals more appetizing, meeting the childrens’ nutritional needs and improving their appetites — and raised the hospital’s patient satisfaction scores.

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