LONE TREE — Jennifer Gundrum wasn’t looking forward to eating hospital food when she checked in at Sky Ridge Medical Center to give birth.
Given all the jokes about colorless chicken and boring gelatin, the elementary-school teacher envisioned “cafeteria food from the old days – where everybody would get the same standard food at the same time,” she said Wednesday from her hospital bed.
So the new mom – Anastacia Mary was born this week – was pleasantly surprised when she was given a room-service menu that featured cooked-to-order meals such as seared Atlantic salmon, blackened halibut with mango chutney, cinnamon-swirl French toast and rich chocolate cake.
“You can pick and choose what you want, when you want,” Gundrum said while dining on a grilled-chicken sandwich.
Sky Ridge is among hundreds of hospitals in Colorado and across the nation that have gone upscale in their food services to patients.
North Suburban Medical Center in Thornton was among the first to do this when it started room service back in 2000, said Michelle Jaeger, a general manager with Sodexho, a company that provides food and nutrition services for all HealthONE hospitals, including Sky Ridge and North Suburban.
Swedish Medical Center in Englewood recently started offering room service.
“It is a huge trend,” Jaeger said.
Hospitals are more “hospitality focused,” she said.
Traditionally, hospitals served a standard meal at set times regardless of whether the patient was hungry, and the patient would have to choose his or her meal the day before, Jaeger said.
She said that resulted in food waste because patients wouldn’t eat their meals.
Jaeger said she has seen a roughly 5 percent reduction in food costs with the new system because there is less food going to waste.
Sky Ridge spokeswoman Linda Watson said room service has been offered to patients since the hospital opened in 2003.
Walter Bronowitz, national secretary for the Florida-based American Culinary Federation and executive chef at the Children’s Hospital & Regional Medical Center in Seattle, said many hospitals nationwide are shifting to the room service model because “what drives a lot of what we do in hospitals is patient satisfaction.”
“By giving them more choices,” more of them are satisfied, he said.
He said many chefs in hospitals that offer room service believe it is more costly than the traditional “tray line” approach to feeding patients.
Because room service meals are made to order, hospitals need to have staffers available to prepare meals called in by patients, he said.
There is also a cost for software used to manage room service calls, said Bronowitz.
At Sky Ridge, the food service staffers punch room service orders into a computer system that identifies the patient by name and room number and allows them to see the patient’s dietary restrictions.
At Parker Adventist Hospital in Parker, executive chef Daniel Skay prepares meals of fresh ono, certified Angus beef and salmon cooked on cedar blanks. There is also a wood-burning pizza oven.
Because Skay is dealing with people who are not well, he said he pays close attention to ingredients. He is careful about how much salt goes into meals and said many dishes are seared or baked, rather than fried.
Skay said he believes a change in culture has resulted in patients expecting more from their meals – even at hospitals.
“If you look at society now, the knowledge of food is so readily available,” he said. “They have the Food Network. They expect good food. … Look at McDonald’s; they’re upscaling.”
At Sky Ridge, executive chef James Sloan said he tries to come up with new items for patients regularly. “You want to raise the bar.”
His 15-member staff serves up to 400 meals a day.
There is also a health benefit to going gourmet, Bronowitz said.
“If you can get people enjoying their food, then they’re more likely to eat their food and they’re more likely to get healthy faster,” he said.
Karen Rouse: 303-954-1684 or krouse@denverpost.com
