Food as Fuel to Power Patient Recovery

The Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital (RBWH) recently hosted its second Kitchen Open Day of the year, which allowed hospital staff to look behind the scenes to see what’s involved in providing tasty and nutritious food for a 1000-bed hospital.

Juerg Suter is the Food Services Site Coordinator at RBWH, and was proud to have staff tour the kitchen to see the many steps involved before a tray of food reaches a patient.

“It all starts at the loading dock, where we receive hundreds of deliveries a week. Before any stock progresses past the dock, it is quality checked to ensure it’s safe and fresh to feed to our patients,” Juerg said.

To help meet the needs of patients, the team recently started collecting real-time feedback via a QR code included with their meal tray.

“We know that what a patient thinks of the food they received in hospital influences their overall level of satisfaction with their hospital stay,” Juerg said.

“The real-time feedback allows us to increase the frequency of popular items on our menu and either tweak, reduce the frequency of or remove those that aren’t resonating so well.”

For many years, hospital food was maligned as unappealing, something that Juerg has seen change over his career.

“Everyone in food services and dietetics is determined to make food that gives patients what they need and that they want to eat,” he said.

“Mealtime in hospital should be something that patients look forward to. It gives the prospect of some degree of normality in an otherwise abnormal environment.”

The final question for Juerg related to the team’s ‘greatest hits’ among RBWH patients.

“Our highest rated main dishes are Chickpea and Pumpkin Curry and Roast Beef and Potato Salad. For dessert, patients love our chocolate brownie and panna cotta,” he said.

RBWH Kitchen facts:

• 220+ amazing food service and dietetic staff
• 4 million patient meals served each year
• 110,000 litres of milk delivered each year
• 4 tonnes of lettuce used each year.