Meet Carlota and Laura
Carlota Basualdo-Hammond is a Registered Dietitian with almost 20 years’ experience in leading dietitian practice. She completed a Master of Science in Nutrition and Metabolism in 1996 and Master of Public Health in 2003. Since 2011, she has been the Nutrition Services, Executive Director, Strategy, Standards and Practice, Alberta Health Services. In her position, she collaborates with operational leaders and leads provincial practice and integration across the continuum of care including practice standards, guidelines, nutrition education resources, and research. She is passionate about leading change to improve patient nutritional care and health outcomes.
Laura Tkach is a Senior Operating Officerat Alberta Health Services (AHS). She is a Registered Dietitian, and her career has included health care food systems management, capital planning of new facilities, and most recently senior leadership for Nutrition & Food Services/Linen & Enviro Services for AHS. She has had significant opportunity throughout her career to develop an understanding of and influence food culture. Laura has been part of the Nutrition & Food Services journey since the beginning of AHS, and has experienced firsthand the power of food as an identifying feature of a geography/community across the province. “I love my work and Our Patients and Our People!”
Alberta Health Services
Alberta Health Services (AHS) is Canada’s first and largest province-wide, fully-integrated health system, responsible for delivering health services to over four million people living in Alberta, as well as to some residents of Saskatchewan, B.C. and the Northwest Territories. AHS has over 108,000 employees in over 650 facilities, including 106 acute care hospitals and five stand-alone psychiatric facilities, with 8,471 acute care beds, 23,742 continuing care beds/spaces, 208 community palliative and hospice beds, 2,439 addiction and mental health beds. The province also has an extensive network of community-based services and has equity partnership in 42 primary care networks.
Nourish Vision
We are “Enhancing the Patient’s Meal Experience” to create an environment where “Food and Meals Matters”, and eating and enjoying meals is valued by both patients and health care teams as essential for recovery. We achieve this by understanding what’s important to patients to know about the food we serve, and how that food impacts what and how much they eat. What are the barriers to patients eating their meals? Would knowledge that we offer locally grown or culturally specific foods enhance their experience, and ultimately their food intake and health outcome? We are working to ensure that the patient voice is heard and that it guides our decisions on food procurement, menu development, and meal delivery.
