Kent State Interns

Hello everyone, I thought it would be interesting to look at the trends of hospital foodservice.  I came across a hospital census report that discusses different aspects of the hospital foodservice market up to date.  This article from   foodservicedirector.com  discusses some of the highlights of hospital foodservice trends in 2012, ranging from food purchasing to patient satisfactory survey information.  It is a census from 50 different hospitals around the U.S. and most of the highlights are broken down into graphs to easily understand.  There is also a link at the bottom of the page to take you to the actual report.  Hope everyone is doing well, Brian W.

There is currently a labor issue in some foodservice operations. A shortage in skilled labor has been seen. Some predict this is because foodservice jobs can be on the lower end of the pay scale and younger people are seeking out other job opportunities. Many foodservice budgets are also being trimmed down due to the economic situation. The lack of skilled workers has lead to many foodservice operations going to prepackaged foods that require much less preparation time than from-scratch cooking seen in the past. Grab-and-go foods are the hot menu items in many hospital cafeterias. This foods provide less chance of food contamination and fewer labor hours to prepare and this seems to be a common trend in food service establishments. Hopefully the grab-and-go will feature healthy conscious food choices and not just the traditional convenience food choices. --Sarah Carlson Reference: http://www.anfponline.org/Publications/articles/2005_10_074Trends.pdf

In order   for university dining services to be successful, they need to keep up with the trends requested by their students.   But designing a foodservice facility that meets the needs of a diverse group of 18-24 year-olds is not an easy task.   So many universities are forced to get creative to solve this problem.  Some recent trends include grab-and-go, international cuisine, and sustainability.  Check out this article   from Restaurants & Institutions to see how some colleges around the country used recent trends to create new campus dining centers . -KC

Job securit y vs D iet itian do mination? Regardless if you are wrapping up your internship, or just beginning the journey we all need to stay aware of the current issues facing us as future members of management and leaders in our field.  An article by Lori Zanteson from this month's Today's Dietitian titled "RD Licensing Legislation - Is It a Matter of Public Safety or Monopoly?" presents the issue of licensure in dietetics. By now we have all heard of the many pieces of legislation that can help, or hurt, in protecting our roles as nutrition experts by preventing non-RD/LD's from providing nutrition advice to the public as a "dietitian" or "nutritionist" (Currently House Bill 259 in Ohio).  In Zanteson's article, she presents opinions of those on both sides - that licensure protects the public (and our job security) by identifying RD/LD's as the primary nutrition educator, and also that licensure limits the public's availa...

A current trend in healthcare food service is offering food with a fine dining experience. The customers want high quality food that tastes great and looks appealing while being at the hospital.   The customers also want diversity when visiting the hospital cafeteria. The simple slice of turkey and mashed potatoes just will not due anymore. The change in menu offerings means that many hospitals now have trained chefs on staff to provide the foods that the customers desire. The customers not only want great tasting, quality food but also healthy options. They want to know the freshest ingredients were used to prepare the meals offered.   Many of the dietitians who ran the food service department are being replaced by culinary managers who are more “equipped” to provide these kinds of foods to the customers. The whole idea behind this is to combine customer satisfaction with choices of many menu items. Gone are the days of just stopping by the hospital cafeteria to get some...

      The World Health Organization identifies six critical building blocks in order for a health system to function: service delivery, human resources for health, medical products, health information systems, health financing, and leadership and governance.  In this article , various health care teams in Kenya attended a six month intervention program centered around a "Challenge Model" similar to Kouzes and Posner's philosophies. Each team identified a problem faced in their healthcare setting and developed a shared vision to fix the problem. Participants who attended the six month intervention program were more successful than their health care competitors in increasing government coverage and compensation in fully immunizing children and providing deliveries by skilled birth attendants. We obviously all must believe leadership is an important component in healthcare, hence why Kent State's dietetic internship program sounded so appealing. This article j...

Management and Dietetics: Are We Prepared for the Future? Contd. Going off of Lindsay’s post on the article of “Management and Dietetics: Are We Prepared for the Future?”, I took interest in the insert at the end of the article, “The Future of Management in Dietetics: A House of Delegates Mega Issue Evolves into a Task Force Charge”. The American Dietetic Association House of Delegates (HOD) host dialog sessions, where two mega issues are discussed per session. A mega issue is classified as, “a topic that will affect the profession in the next 5 to 10 years”. The future of dietetics in management was such a critical issue that a task force was eventually created. The Future of Management in Dietetics Task Force was assigned “with developing a matrix to determine how management skills are used across the spectrum of practice, as well as, to recommended strategies to foster the development of management skills in dietetics”. The task force was given three guiding principles to fol...

According to Food Management, there are some top trends being seen in managed service. The top five trends that are being seen include: Food trucks Sustainability programs Nutrition education Promotion of wellness Mobile computing The mobile computing is a key area for many managers in the food service industry. They want to be able to get on Facebook and Twitter, for example, to connect with their clients. This is a great way to get your product out there in time when social media plays such a vital role in the process. The food service managers can give menus, nutritional information and even place orders. This definitely seems to be the way of staying current and in touch with the client. The nutrition education is also a great way for the foodservice department to allow the customers to see the nutritional facts and learn how to make the best choices at the facility. The public being able to see what is in the food choices they make could sway them to want to make better c...

This article , which was first published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association in 2008, was republished in May 2012, highlighting the fact that leadership skills are timeless.   The author interviewed individuals who currently hold or previously held leadership or management positions within the field of nutrition, and they provided tips for dietitians who would be interested in “Moving into Management”.   Among the topics discussed in the article, the first is “Know Your Personality”, and this is very relevant to class considering our recent focus on the Myers Briggs Type Indicator.   In addition, the importance of networking plays an essential role within this article, remaining consistent with the messages we have received from speakers in class.   This article is also useful because it provides tips for catering your resume and interviewing skills to fit the pursuit of a management position.    -Ashley

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This article entitled “Transformational Leadership and Organizational Commitment: A Cross-Cultural Perspective” sought to examine how a transformational leadership style could impact the level of employee commitment within an organization.   The researchers actually used Kouzes & Posner’s Leadership Practices Inventory to collect information about the company’s leadership culture and performed an in-depth analysis using the five leadership behaviors including Challenging the Process, Inspiring Shared Vision, Enabling Others to Act, Modeling the Way, and Encouraging the Heart as the basis for their leadership measurements.   This study demonstrated that a transformational leadership style was associated with higher organizational commitment by establishing a significant relationship between two well-known and verified models: the Kouzes & Posner model that we studied and the Meyer & Allen 3-Component Model for organizational commitment.   This study ...

The final component of "The Leadership Challenge" is "Encourage the Heart".  An entire book has been devoted to this single component alone.  I found a fun and unique lesson plan designed to help an individual have an insight on this component.  Although specifically the plan is designed for school-aged individuals, it is definitely adaptable to a work or management setting.  Enjoy! http://www.tsaweb.org/sites/default/files/u1/EncourageTheHeart%20lesson%20plan.pdf Lindsay Skiba

The Commission on Dietetic Registration created a Workforce Demand Task Force in 2009 with the responsibility of identifying employment trends in the field of registered dietetics, and the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition & Dietetics published it this past March.   It was interesting to look over because the trends seen in this analysis are related to some of the topics we have discussed in class.   For instance, the report demonstrated that there is a definite trend toward clinical specialties and away from the food service focus.   From the interests of those in our group, this seems to hold true.   Another aspect of this report worth noting is that “in a trend likely related to the increase in clinical practice, RD positions are gradually losing managerial responsibility”.   The idea of protecting our scope of practice from those who are not registered or properly educated has been brought up in both class and at the Public Policy Day, and t...

     During my foodservice internship, I reviewed this  article on Quality Improvement and discussed how Swedish researchers identified problems with food distribution programs such as Meals on Wheels in order to find solutions and improve the health and quality of life in the elderly. The main problem identified was food distribution was a fragmentary social intervention with a desperate need for a comprehensive perspective and development of clear job descriptions for those involved. Assistant nurses with little educational training involved in the Meals on Wheels Program in Sweden reported spending the most amount of time with the elderly. Yet on average they only spent five minutes delivering food to the door and opening up meal boxes before leaving. Furthermore, the main district nurses often reported lacking routine in following up on food intake results when elderly weight loss measurements were significant. When I was reading this article, I couldn...

I found the following three types of leadership to be quite different yet very interesting depending on the work environment and personality type. Authoritarian Leadership (Autocratic) Authoritarian leaders provide clear expectations for what needs to be done, when it should be done, and how it should be done. There is also a clear division between the leader and the followers. Authoritarian leaders make decisions independently with little or no input from the rest of the group. Authoritarian leadership is best applied to situations where there is little time for group decision-making or where the leader is the most knowledgeable member of the group. Participative Leadership (Democratic) Studies found that participative leadership, also known as democratic leadership , is generally the most effective leadership style. Democratic leaders offer guidance to group members, but they also participate in the group and allow input from other group members. Partic...

Check out this  independent online resource for o bjective topical debates and informed opinions by thought leaders on management, leadership, and human resources issues: Management Issues- the heart of a changing workplace.    There are a number of dedicated microsites within the larger site: one is on Leadership   and another on Women and Work  which touches on all aspects of women in the workplace. Check out the "columnists" tab for more focused articles across many interests.    We have so much to read and digest right now. This seems to be a good bookmark for our internet toolbox as we move into the workforce as employees, entrepreneurs, and leaders!  ~jackie

Learn how nutrition professionals are using Facebook, Twitter, and blogs to network, promote nutrition messages, and receive business opportunities they never dreamed possible.  The Power of Social Networking — Here’s How You Can Use It to Market Your Brand By Christina M. Barth, BA, and Christin L. Seher, MS, RD, LD Today’s Dietitian Vol. 14 No. 5 P. 36 http://www.todaysdietitian.com/newarchives/050112p36.shtml 8 Tips for Effective Social Media Communication Here’s how to develop an online presence built on integrity so you can post, tweet, and blog nutrition messages and have a positive influence in the dietetics social media space. 1. Show integrity.   Treat the statements you make online as if you’re making them face to face. 2. Remain authentic.   Always state who you are and who you represent when posting online. 3. Stay civil.   If you disagree with a post, respectfully disagree while acknowledging different viewpoints, being consider...

Found this article on the Academy's linked in and I thought it applied to us 1. because it is about leadership and 2. it talks about personality types which is what we will be learning more about with the Myers Briggs indicator.  Enjoy :) Check it out Amanda

This is an interesting study that looks specifically at the perceptions of management rotations during the dietetic internship.  Pretty interesting so take a look! http://www.andjrnl.org/article/S2212-2672%2812%2900848-9/fulltext Lindsay Skiba

Time and time again, our internship classes welcomed speakers working in the management side of dietetics, and one of the first questions we get asked is: "How many of you can see yourself in management"?  Out of 20 interns, there will be a scarce amount of hands that rise.  Cited from HOD Backgrounder: The Future of Management in Dietetics from the House of Delegates of The American Dietetic Association, " Students and entry-level food and nutrition professionals report a negative impression of management in dietetics".  The article "Management and Dietetics:Are We Prepared for the Future?" has an inside look at the dietetics field and the perception of management:   Publications from the Academy http://www.andjrnl.org/article/S2212-2672%2812%2900331-0/fulltext Lindsay Skiba

Currently, fewer than 50% of RDs supervise others and 76% have no budget authority.  Nutrition professionals who are willing to step forward and assume the risks and responsibilities of management will also share in the rewards (higher salaries) and propel the profession to new heights of recognition and respect. This  article  from the Journal of the American Dietetic Association focuses on why management is important in the dietetics field and includes tips on ways dietitians can improve their management skills. -KC

During my clinical long term care rotation, dietitian burnout was a new topic that was brought to my attention.   My preceptor mentioned how tedious and tiresome it was to complete the large amount of required paperwork for each patient and how despite working long days, she was never able to get completely caught up on her list of required MDS assessments.   Burnout would be an essential topic for managers in the field of nutrition to understand because it could negatively impact not only the wellbeing of employees but also their overall productivity.    In an article published in the Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics , researchers examined the prevalence of burnout among RDs.   They found that 57% of the dietitians in the study population were experiencing either moderate or high levels of burnout, and although this is a lower prevalence than has been demonstrated in other medical careers, it is clearly an issue of which administrators need t...

As I was searching for topics to blog about, I goggled "Leadership and Dietetics." Look what I found! http://www.andjrnl.org/article/PIIS2212267212008672/related?article_id=S2212-2672%2812%2900867-2 Take notice of the related articles and then scroll down to the second publication listed in the periodical search.    ~Abby 

Leaders serve as task managers, instructors and decision-makers. Whether you're the leader of a company of soldiers or a department of business analysts, your leadership abilities and style help determine mission success. Developing solid strategies can motivate team members, allowing you to meet goals. Combining your talent and experience can help you create a leadership philosophy. Read more:   How to Develop a Philosophy on Leadership | eHow.com ~Abby