Measuring Productivity for Nutrition Services

Gregoire, M. B., & Theis, M. L. (2015). 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(7), 1141-1147.

Food and nutrition services, along with health care, is expanding and becoming more complex due to multiple organizational and environmental factors. For this reason, there has been a shift in the way managers approach productivity in order to address these complexities. For example, in the past, single-factor relationships have been used in order to examine the input and output of nutrition service operations. Today, a systems approach may be more appropriate in order to examine how inputs, outputs, and the whole process are interrelated and influence overall outcomes. The shifting healthcare environment requires food service directors to be more aware of the entire system and the efficiency of work being done in their operations, making sure not to sacrifice quality. Food service managers are also challenged to engage in polarity thinking. Polarities are defines as “ interdependent yet potentially polar opposite pairs of values, such as values of highest quality and least cost. These may seem to be opposite and competing values, yet both must be managed simultaneously to achieve the most positive outcome.”