Patient and Staff Food Experience
Improving the patient food experience is a central part of Nourish’s work to reconnect food and healing.
Research and practice tell us that patients care a lot about the food served to them and it significantly impacts their recovery and wellness. However, changing the patient tray and meal experience is not a simple task. Patient menus need to be rethought and better respond to cultural and other food preferences. Offering choice about when and what to eat through room service models results in satisfaction going up, tray waste going down, and patients choosing foods that support their recovery best. Ensuring sustainable and nutritious food offerings for staff and visitors is equally important. Options that reflect Canada’s Food Guide and cultural food practices align health care organizations missions with their practices and can help to underscore the interconnections between food systems and planetary health.
ACTIONS to Improve Patient & Staff Food Experience
Make Mealtime Matter
Years of hospital malnutrition research and action have found that protecting mealtimes is essential to support patient/resident healing and health; it is not just secondary to care, and whole facility buy-in is needed. Capturing better data on the patient food experience will help us understand what patients value and where improvements can be made.
Culturally Responsive Menus
Building cultural awareness, knowledge and skills is critical for patient-centred care -- in particular around food, which plays such an important role in healing and well-being for cultures around the world. Cooking more from scratch with fresh ingredients opens up possibilities for creativity in kitchens. Menus that reflect the needs and diversity of the populations they serve affirms the fundamental role that food and comfort play in healing, and provides opportunities for patients, residents, families and community members to contribute to menu design.
Dignified & Healthy Food Environments
Providing fresh, local, sustainable, plant-forward cultural offerings demonstrates a commitment by the health care sector to ‘first, do no harm’ as part of a comprehensive approach to promote the interconnected health of people and planet. They also provide educational opportunities to guide patients, staff, and families to build healthy habits at home.
Room Service & Patient Choice
Giving patients choice when it comes to their meals can reduce food waste and improve patient satisfaction. Room service models offer this choice, allowing patients to decide what they would prefer to eat and when they would like to eat it.
RESOURCES to Improve Patient & Staff Food Experience:
Alberta Health Services, Time to Eat Toolkit
Guardian, Hospital food around the world article
Nourish Collaborative Project, Measuring the Patient Food Experience
Nourish Transition Practice Study, Josée Lavoie/CHU Ste-Justine
Schlegel-UW Research Institute for Aging, Meals Matter video