Client Success Story - Metropolitan Hospital

Food service directors in hospitals have always struggled to provide food for third-shift employees because of the costs associated with food service staffing compared to patron sales during the late-shift operations.

CBORD® and Sodexo have teamed up to provide Metropolitan Hospital in Grand Rapids, Michigan, with an innovative and cost-effective solution for third-shift food service known as "Midnight Express." Midnight Express is a self-ordering system located in specific high-traffic areas throughout Metropolitan Hospital.

Patrons use Midnight Express by selecting their meal on a MICROS touch-screen terminal and swiping their ID badge though the built-in card reader to place and process their order. Employees then select when they would like to pick up their meal and the meals are prepared minutes before the desired pickup time, so the food is always hot and fresh. The menu is quite extensive, offering anything from rib-eye steak and fried chicken to fresh fruit and ice cream. Midnight Express also accepts VISA and MasterCard, which allows visitors to also take advantage of this system. By using the employee ID badge to pay for meals, payment is processed through the Odyssey PCS™ cashless system and the amount is deducted automatically from payroll checks or debit accounts, eliminating the need to carry cash.

Odyssey PCS offers

• Convenient payroll deduction
• Unlimited number of patron records
• Unlimited number of peripherals
• Real-time cardholder verification
• Declining balance accounts (debit)
• Transaction history for each cardholder

To encourage the use of Midnight Express, the placement of the touch screens is very important. High-traffic areas and places where there is around-the-clock activity are prime locations. Presently Metropolitan Hospital has two Midnight Express touch-screen locations: one next to obstetrics and one near the visitor elevators on the second floor. Midnight Express opens at 7:00 p.m. to allow employees to start ordering their meals for meal pickup times between 10:00 p.m. and 2:00 a.m. Since Metropolitan Hospital already offers a convenient room service to its patients, the kitchen is already set up to work efficiently.

CBORD and Sodexo spent months designing the order screens to ensure they were easy to use and understand. In addition, they helped to prepare the Midnight Express ordering system by connecting a telephone directly to the kitchen for questions during the order process and by providing a Midnight Express Operations Manual for the kitchen staff.

Sean McKenzie, Food Service Director, and Scott Hancher, Retail Manager at Metropolitan Hospital, are both pleased with the system. They report that the hospital averaged sixty meals per night during the week and twenty-five meals per night during the weekend in just the first week of operation. The employees are also very pleased with the system and have commented on how easy and convenient it is to use. The hospital is considering offering breakfast items and using the system twenty-four hours a day in the future.

The CBORD Group, Inc., is proud to be a part of this project. Providing products that support our client needs has always been a CBORD goal.