Client Success Story - Piedmont Hospital
Piedmont Hospital is a private, not-for-profit, acute-care facility offering most major medical, surgical, and diagnostic services to the Atlanta community and surrounding areas. The hospital boasts 500 beds, 3,000 employees, and a medical staff of more than 800 board-certified, experienced physicians. A CBORD® customer since 1994, Piedmont implemented its Room Service program in 2005.
Delivering Success
“Good morning, and thank you for calling on-call dining. How may we help you?” This is what patients hear when they call in their meal orders to Piedmont's Room Service call center. In September 2006, the Food Services department celebrated its one-year anniversary with the system.
“Piedmont has always set the standard for high-quality clinical care,” says Dan Salas, former Director of Food Services at Piedmont. “On-call dining has allowed us to go a step further by setting the standard for the highest-quality nutritional care as well.”
CBORD's hotel-style Room Service program fully caters to the nutritional requirements of patients, and its unique nutritional features enable food service personnel to modify a patient's selected food items to synchronize with physician guidelines. Piedmont's program boasts twenty-six different menus to match a variety of traditional diets. Plus, the system allows personnel to create “nontraditional” menus, including ones with Spanish translations.
“Room Service gives our patients the food they want, when they want it—all while ensuring compliance with their diet orders,” says Salas. In fact, CBORD created its Room Service system with patient satisfaction and safety foremost in mind, and these two things matter a lot when working to improve Press Ganey scores.
Patient Satisfaction
“Eating habits are generally altered when an individual is ill or when he or she is on medication,” says Salas. “Room Service gives patients the power of choice, ensuring consistent nutrition and decreasing waste—a win-win in any contemporary healthcare environment. Patients order what they want to eat, as well as how much they are able to eat.”
“In addition, we have uncovered an interesting phenomenon. The Clinical Nutrition Manager has created a nutritional environment to support a shorter hospital stay; however, the kitchen staff is finding that patients are asking to stay a bit longer in order to eat 'just one more meal!'”
Creative Implementation
Wearing a black-tie and jacket uniform, the hospital's Room Service Representatives (RSRs) greet and introduce the program to patients. Each RSR is assigned to a permanent group of rooms, assuring appropriate communication with the nursing staff regarding patients' nutritional needs. RSRs are also available to assist patients who are unable to order by phone by using CBORD's handheld Bedside Menu Entry devices.
“The hospital has received a great response to the way in which we've implemented the system,” says Salas. “The practices of Piedmont's Nutrition and Food Services department using Room Service's creative, collaborative, patient-focused system reflect the traditional excellence for which the hospital is known well in the immediate community.”
