Polarity in the Role of Food and Nutrition Services Manager

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In an era driven by productivity, food and nutrition services managers are now being charged with the goal of improving productivity within their operations.  The process of improvement may be an easy task when efficiency is the goal; however, the health care industry has developed into a dichotomy that emphasizes efficiency and quality.  These contrasting needs have led to the polarity experienced by food and nutrition services managers in their quest to provide both characteristics without sacrificing either.

To assure quality and efficiency, productivity assessments have been instituted to help identify opportunities for improvement throughout the input, transformation, and output processes.  With the ever-expanding responsibilities—patient meals, employee and visitor meals, and nutrition care services—of the food and nutrition services department, the measuring and monitoring of productivity has become integral to the role of the department’s manager.

Measurement methods use internal and external benchmarking to measure single-factor productivity, such as meals per labor hour, number of sales, and patients per hour, to compare to internal standards or external organizations.  Human, departmental, organizational, and environmental factors can affect productivity in the quest to accommodate employees, address growing needs for more healthful and hotel-style meal offerings, provide effective leadership and promote efficiency, while battling rising healthcare demands and costs, respectively.  As a result, food and nutrition services managers must find a balance when making decisions on productivity to ensure the most efficient use of resources.  The goal of food and nutrition services managers should be to deliver holistic healthcare to patients, employees, and visitors by providing the highest quality services at the lowest cost.

Gregoire, M. B., & Theis, M. L. (2015). From the Academy: Practice paper of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics: Principles of productivity in food and nutrition services: Applications in the 21st century health care reform era. Journal Of The Academy Of Nutrition And Dietetics, 115, 1141-1147. doi:10.1016/j.jand.2015.04.025

LH

Comments

  1. ksu internsOctober 4, 2016 at 4:02 PM

    I enjoyed this blog post throughout its entirety. Having some work experience in a hospital kitchen, I saw a lot of the things you mentioned about balancing quality and quantity. From first hand experience, I notice that at times it is very hard to get morale into the kitchen. This directly affects the productivity. Also, as the dietetic profession expands and matures, RD's and Food Service Managers are going to be asked to handle more responsibilities (this can be positive or negative) which can again impact the quality as well as quantity in the kitchen.

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