This hospital in Nebraska just successfuly put in the "At Your Request" Program from Sodexho. From 7AM-7PM, patients can order from a menu with full breakfast items, baked fish, hambugers, grill items, etc. Apparently, this reduces food costs, reduces waste, and gets nurses out of the food service business. Check out Sodexho's PDF Sell Sheet for more benefits.

Sodexho has put this program in place for 233 facilities. Not surprisingly, Aramark, a leader in food service (among other services) in hospitals, offers a similar menu-driven program. Also of note from Aramark was their 3/23/05 press release on hospital dining - they estimate that only 50% of employee dining needs are being met at hospitals. If hospitals could do this better, hospitals could increase revenues by $350MM/year.

UPDATE: Seems like every week, I'm hearing more and more about how hospitals are becoming more like hotels. Like I previously posted, hospital patient registration clerks need to become more like hotel check-in personnel. Andrew Barna's got a post on hospitals being "more than a hotel." Also, HealthLeaders also highlighted some lessons that hospitals should learn from the Ritz-Carlton. One example: all hospital workers, clinical or not, are "on stage" and should "maintain positive eye contact" and "use proper vocabulary."