Don’t expect to find mints on your pillow at night, but your stay at FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital does include room service. Although the 385-bed hospital hasn’t been converted to a four-star hotel, you CAN pick up the phone in your hospital room and order breakfast, lunch and dinner—not to mention between-meal snacks. The hospital meal that once almost certainly included a bowl of jiggly gelatin may surprise you today. With dozens of options, the new food service program introduced this summer makes patients feel like they’re being served from a hotel restaurant.

Called “At Your Request—Room Service Dining,” the program operates daily from 6:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. During that time, patients order by phone from an extensive bedside menu. They can also expect their food to be delivered in 45 minutes.

“Patients get to choose what they want and when they want it,” says Food Service Director Garry O’Neill.

Of course, the “what-you-want” part depends on the diet ordered by the patient’s physician. And, for the patient who’s just had a heart procedure, a plate of fried chicken will certainly get thumbs down.

According to Vivian Ratliff, R.D., a registered dietitian and Moore Regional’s clinical nutrition manager, the menu can be used as an educational tool that helps patients choose the right foods. Eighty different diets are in the program’s software system, and everything from salt to salmon and mayonnaise to meatloaf is entered into the computer to determine if it’s compliant with each diet.

“This helps patients make healthier food choices when they leave the hospital,” Ratliff says.

According to Ratliff, the computer is programmed to assist members of the diet office staff when they take a patient’s order. When a diet clerk answers the phone, the patient’s dietary information appears on a computer screen. Foods that are not allowed—according to the diet the patient’s physician has recommended—are darkened on the screen. That’s the signal that the patient’s choice has been blocked and the cue for the diet clerk to ask, “May I help you make another choice?”

Restaurant resemblance
Making the switch to the new program meant a complete renovation of the hospital kitchen that was about 30 years old.

“We replaced equipment and redesigned the kitchen,” says O’Neill.

There are three separate sections: one for the room service program, one for catering and one for the cafeteria.

With the start of the new program, patients now have dozens of food choices. Breakfast entrees, which are available throughout the day, include pancakes, waffles, French toast, eggs and made-to-order omelets with sides, breads, fruits, yogurt and a dozen types of cereal. For lunch and dinner, both served from 11:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., patients can choose soups, salads, deli sandwiches (with meat, cheese and bread options), and meat, fish or pasta entrees.

“Sweet Touches” offers a range of desserts from carrot cake to chocolate cream pie, with sweet potato pie for that Southern twist.

The hospital cafeteria, which also offers a variety of options for visitors and patients, is open around the clock.

What’s on the menu?
Baked sweet potatoes, macaroni and cheese, fried okra and pinto beans are some of the more Southern-style foods that you’ll find on Moore Regional’s room service menu. Comfort foods include fried chicken, mashed potatoes, meatloaf and beef tips.

You’ll also find pizza and grill items. A children’s menu has chicken tenders, fish sticks and milkshakes.

“We want our patients to eat; it’s part of the healing process,” O’Neill says. “The main focus is on patient satisfaction.”

Satisfying patients is what drives the “At Your Request” program. Sodexho Inc., the Maryland-based food and facilities company that manages Moore Regional’s food service, created the program. Now used in 250 hospitals in North America, it was developed in 1996 by the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, part of Harvard Medical School, and launched nationally in 1998.

Today, hospitals around the country serve 120,000 meals a day through the program. Moore Regional is one of 35 hospitals that started it this year.

“All hospitals see an increase in satisfaction,” O’Neill says about patient survey results.

They also cut down on wasted food, because patients are served the food they want.

Making choices
But satisfying what a patient requires for either a medical condition or general good nutrition doesn’t mean an unlimited selection of food. Some patients are restricted to a clear liquid diet, while others are counting carbohydrates.

According to Ratliff, patients with diabetes are allowed a meal with four carbohydrates. If they order only three, the diet clerk encourages them to order an item that provides one more.

Diets are available for patients with allergies to peanuts and shellfish, for patients who have stroke-related swallowing difficulties and for patients who have had gastric bypass procedures. A new diet is directed toward patients with gastroparesis, a condition that primarily affects diabetics who have paralysis of the stomach. That three-step diet addresses gastrointestinal problems and helps control blood sugar.

Speech therapists can order special diets for their patients who may not be able to swallow pureed foods. A diet that was created at Moore Regional is a no-mixed-consistencies diet for speech patients who can’t eat solids and liquids together.

The hospital also complies with special requests, even if it means making special purchases for a single patient.

“For example, an Asian patient didn’t eat American food, so we purchased food to make stir-fry dishes for her,” Ratliff says.

Specialty foods also have been provided for Hispanic patients.

“Our goal is high patient satisfaction,” says Ratliff.

Assistance from staff, family
Patients are screened for their ability to phone in their orders when they are admitted to the hospital, and members of the hospital staff are trained to assist them as needed. To-go menus are available so family members can call in from home and place an order for a loved one. Food & Nutrition Services employees deliver meals, a task once assigned to nurses, who still pick up used trays so they can monitor how much the patient has eaten.

From answering the phone by using the patient’s name to delivering what the patient wants to eat, the goal is to satisfy the patient. “We want to provide knock-your-socks-off customer service,” says Ratliff.