Unenclosed Patient Tray Carts
And Plastic Wrapped Salads And Desserts Can Lower Your 
Customer Satisfaction Scores
April 2002

THE CHALLENGE
Patient tray carts without walls or doors force Food Service Director’s to individually wrap all food items on patient trays including salads and desserts. In our opinion, this can lower customer satisfaction scores because it detracts from the over-all appearance of the tray.

OUR OBSERVATIONS
We have noticed that when “open air” (non-enclosed) patient tray carts are used, several challenges occur:

1. If the cart is not “enclosed”, everything on the tray has to be individually wrapped or covered to avoid air exposure during the trip from the kitchen to the unit; it becomes an infection control issue.

2. Individually wrapping or covering each tray item creates a lot of extra labor for your team. Most folks no longer have the man power for this kind of thing.

3. Most importantly, wrapping every tray item, especially salads and desserts, detracts from the overall patient tray appearance.

Note: Insulated trays are a whole separate ball game. They generally require un-enclosed carts with all the food being covered by one large tray cover. Insulated trays have there own set of appearance issues which will be handled in another e-mail.

OUR SOLUTION
If tray appearance is important to you then you should use enclosed patient carts. Do not cover your salads and desserts with plastic wrap. However, it is appropriate and necessary to cover items such as coffee and soup, which often spill easily whenever the cart or tray is moved. If you have to cover salads and desserts we suggest using the disposable, clear plastic covers even though they cost more than plastic wrap. This will make the tray look more professional.

FOR YOUR INFORMATION
Our Destination 10 clients with enclosed carts are successfully getting away from having to individually wrap salads and desserts on patient trays. To comply with health codes JCAHO requires that the food be delivered to the unit in an enclosed container. An enclosed cart fits the bill. Moving the enclosed cart down the hallway from room to room as the trays are passed allows compliance in the opinion of most but not all professionals. Of course, all food items or patient trays that are carried to the floor by hand, or on a small open utility cart need to be covered. Warning – a few health care facilities are so strict that they are forcing food service directors to cover each individual item regardless of what the FSD wants to do. We believe their customer satisfaction scores will suffer as a result.

THE BOTTOM LINE
Our experience shows that Press Ganey scores go up when the patient trays look great because people eat with their eyes as well as their taste buds. Wrapped foods, especially salads and deserts give the “vending machine” appearance. This is not the image that most food service directors in hospitals and long term care are looking for.

MORE DETAILS
To see what attractive and unattractive patient trays look like go to our website at www.chefdon.com

TO BECOME AN EXPERT ON TAKING YOUR DEPARTMENT TO THE 10 LEVEL IN ALL AREAS:
Come to the June 30th annual ASHFSA Pre-Conference in Orlando, Florida. To find out more details go to www.ASHFSA.org

Please Pass This And Other Hints & Tips E-Mails On To Your Food Service Friends. They may sign up to receive our free hints and tips e-mails by simply providing us with their e-mail address.

Don Miller, R.D., C.E.C.
Nancy Yezzi, R.D., L.D.
Bill Klein, C.I.C.
Success Coaches

Don Miller and Associates
346 Crestview Drive
Bonita, CA 91902
(619) 656-2100 PST
(619) 656-1321 fax
chefdon@cox.net
http://www.chefdon.com