As hospitals continue to struggle with operational costs, some are now looking to clamp down on food waste to stem the tide. Providers are addressing the issue with a combination of electronic tracking, composting and forecasting.
It's estimated that between 4 to 10 percent of food in most hospitals and health systems is discarded before it even reaches staffers, patients and visitors - so-called pre-consumer waste. Post-consumer waste, the food discarded after it's been served, accounts for an additional 10 to 15 percent. The smaller the hospital, the closer their numbers are to the high end of these ranges, according to Andrew Shakman, president of LeanPath, a company that offers software to help manage the problem of food waste.
The hospital industry spends about $4.5 billion on food a year according to Joe Pawlak, vice president at Technomic, a food industry consulting firm. By his calculations, almost $1 billion of that money is lost to pre- and post-consumer food waste.
Hospitals have discovered several solutions to the food waste problem. Many are replacing traditional tray services for inpatients with hotel-style room service, Shakman said. Instead of patients receiving a no-options, predetermined meal from the hospital kitchen, they can choose from a menu with several entrees, all consistent with the physician's dietary prescription.
Patients not only choose what they want to eat but when. These hotel-style accommodations mean patients are more likely to eat what they're served, which translates into less waste. And since patients are only served meals when they actually want to eat, this approach also reduces the number of meals a hospital serves. "You go from serving 2.7 meals per patient per day to 2.3 meals," said Shakman.
Several health systems are also turning to electronic waste tracking to help get the problem under control. Companies like LeanPath, for instance, offer an automated food waste tracking system that allows kitchen staffs to weigh un-served food on an electronic scale connected to a computer. Using a touch screen terminal, they enter the type of food being discarded and the reason for the disposal. The software then captures the date and time and calculates the estimated value of the waste. The reasoning behind the tracking system is simple: You can't fix a problem until you measure it.
Gundersen Lutheran Health System, a not-for-profit healthcare system in La Crosse, Wis. that averages about 400 patient meals and 2,300 staff and guest meals a day, has seen a return on investment using the LeanPath tracking system. "With the software, we can look at what happened one week versus another and look at what our strategy is to reduce it the next time around," said Mark Hutson, administrative director of food services at Gundersen, in a LeanPath case study on Gundersen's experience with LeanPath. According to the case study, Gundersen reduced pre-consumer waste by more than 50 percent by weight in seven months, which resulted in savings of $25,000 a year.
The dietetics department at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) is considering an electronic tracking system at some point down the road, but right now it relies on more traditional solutions.
Lorraine Allan, a registered dietitian and the assistant director of food production, quality and safety at MGH, explained that in 2011, the hospital began using a compostable waste decomposer to convert much of the hospital's pre-consumer waste into compost. The decomposer processes about 125 pounds of food a day, essentially baking the waste, reducing its bulk by about 89 percent. The environmentally-friendly final product has been used by the hospital's buildings and grounds department during flower planting season.
MGH also uses forecasting and periodically reviews recipe yields to more closely match patients' needs to food production. Allan explained that they use historical data to predict how much food they will need to prepare, taking into account holidays, special events and any other factors that can affect staff and visitor demand for food services. And finally, left over food is sometimes sent along to those in need, including to the New England Center for Homeless Veterans Boston.