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This is Hospital Food?: Bona Fide Chefs, Fresh Ingredients, Gourmet Menus Make Up the Patented Cure

Posted on: Sunday, 22 April 2007, 19:05 CDT

Bona fide chefs, fresh ingredients, gourmet menus make up the patented cure

Fruit cocktail isn't cutting it anymore. Neither are the salisbury steak and boiled peas.

Hospital patients have made it clear -- if they're going to have to eat food off of a plastic tray, it better not taste like one.

Perhaps the fastest way to solve that problem is with a chef -- not a food service manager, but a bonafide bechamel-sauce making chef.

That's exactly what happened at Bailey Medical Center in Owasso. Before the hospital was even constructed, officials decided that food would be a priority, and that Ryan Woodward would be the one to make that happen.

Woodward, fresh off a management position at Pei Wei, was hired as the dietary and catering manager at the hospital. His first responsibility? Hire a chef. Woodward talked to Barry Rashford, then executive chef at the Doubletree Hotel Downtown, about coming to Bailey.

"I never thought I'd be working in a hospital. Never," Rashford said.

This is a man who went through the apprenticeship program at Walt Disney World and built his career on high-end gourmet food.

But that's exactly

what Bailey officials wanted -- a chef who could bring real food made with olive oil, herbs and fresh vegetables, not canned vegetables and pre-made food from a food service truck, to a hospital setting.

Country club service

Improving the taste, presentation and service of hospital food is a national trend, and one that's been on the radar at St. John Medical Center for a while. Last year, St. John officials hired Joe Hamilton, a chef who had spent more than 15 years as the executive chef at Tulsa Country Club.

It didn't matter that Hamilton didn't have any hospital experience; in fact it helped his chances of being hired.

Hamilton said he's been able to bring a totally different perspective to how food is made and served at St. John. He and his staff feed about 5,000 people a day -- 1,200 of those are patients. Doctors, nurses and hospital staff have noticed the changes since Chef Joe, as he's known around the hospital, has taken over.

Some of the most popular new hospital food choices are at the St. John Cafe where the Cubano, a sandwich made with ham, turkey, provolone and spicy mayo on marble rye, is a hit.

Hamilton's goal is to step away from pre-made, canned foods in favor of fresh ingredients. He's even talking about an herb garden in one of the courtyard areas on the St. John campus.

Survey says

Rachel Vincent, food and nutrition services manager at St. John Owasso, says hospital patient surveys directed hospital officials to this new path of good, fresh hospital food.

Vincent said those surveys were instrumental in the creation of the new hospital kitchen at St. John Owasso.

Surveys showed that patients were satisfied overall with their care. It was the food that bothered them.

"When you're staying in a hospital, things are done to you. But food is done for you," Vincent said. "Meal time may be the only high spot in a patient's day. And when you can choose what you want to eat, it makes it even better."

Patients asked for more choices, healthier foods, more salads, fresh fruits and vegetables and comfort foods.

So far, the new patient-minded menu seems to be working. When a patient was checking out of St. John Owasso recently, she asked to have the recipe for the chicken salad.

Room service

Across the country, room service is the No. 1 hospital food trend. Hospital officials know it draws in patients, and those who have it aren't missing any opportunities to advertise the service.

Room service in a hospital isn't so much about being pampered, as it is in a hotel. For hospital patients, room service is about choice -- the choice of what to eat and when to eat it.

At SouthCrest Hospital, room service is offered from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. every day. From a room service menu, patients can pick grilled salmon or a filet with peppercorn sauce, cobb salad or a fresh fruit plate, and many other choices.

Bailey Medical Center and St. John Owasso offer the same service, and it's no coincidence that the new hospitals are the ones offering room service.

Joe Hamilton at St. John said it's simply not feasible to offer room service at a sprawling older hospital like St. John. For one, the elevators and computer systems aren't equipped to handle it. In new hospitals, room service orders are typically sent electronically by hospital staff, and those requests are then quickly turned around by kitchen staff.

Even though it's not available at many of the larger hospitals now, room service is something that may be part of every hospital some day, Hamilton said.

Courting the staff

Gone are the days when hospital staff had to eat whatever the patients were eating. That's the way it used to be -- hungry doctors and nurses didn't have much of a choice. It was either the hospital special of the day or black coffee.

These days, hospital cafeterias feed more staff members and patients' families than they do patients. That opened the doors to serving food without any regard to nutritional content. At many hospital cafeterias, fast-food style pizza, hamburgers, french fries and ice cream outnumber the salads and soups.

Some believe hospitals aren't the place for junk food. It's an area where many hospital dietitians and food service managers have to work to find agreement.

At St. Francis Hospital, it's easy to find the fried chicken and biscuits and gravy. You have to look a little harder for the healthy options, but they're always there. The chef's chalkboard menu is a good place to start. Choices there change daily, and include chicken and artichoke salad with tortilla soup or broccoli cheese soup in a bread bowl with fresh fruit.

Turning Point

Joe Hamilton can't believe the kind of food he's making at St. John. Roasted pork loin, fresh asparagus, couscous -- it's the kind of food he would be making at an upscale restaurant.

Hamilton knows that as people have become more aware of the foods they're eating, and more conscious of gourmet ingredients, it's difficult to then go to a hospital and find subpar food. Food, he believes, is a big part of the hospital experience.

Rashford agrees. He believes he's in a position to help shape the hopsital experience. A patient who recently had a short stay in the hospital came back to the kitchen after he was discharged just to visit with the staff -- and have a sandwich.

"We made him milkshakes while he was here," Rashford said."

And he apparently didn't forget it.

Rashford is just as interested in helping patients navigate healthy eating. He and Woodward are developing a program to teach gastric bypass patients how to cook.

But Rashford wants to help all patients, whether it's a short stay filled with milkshakes and pancakes, or a longer stay where patients leave with better eating habits.

"When you're paying $400 or more a night to stay in a hospital, you should be able to expect good service, and good food," he said.

Source: Tulsa World

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