Bedside Spoken Menu serves up a better food service experience for VGH patients

Patients at Vancouver General Hospital are about to be treated more like guests when it comes to making choices about what they’d like to order for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

On February 14, Sodexo’s dietary aides, equipped with iPads, will begin visiting patients in their rooms to take their meal orders. The program will be rolled out across VGH, with the exception of patients who have complex dietary needs and a handful of units.*

The Bedside Spoken Menu Program, previously known as the “Hostess Program”, will provide more face-to-face, friendly and patient-centred food service. The program will also help the Food Service Department reduce the amount of wasted food as patients will be able to order exactly what they feel up to eating (within their prescribed diet) on any given day.

Daily visits with patients

Order-taking will take place from approximately 11 am – 3 pm. The menu choice is entered into the iPad which sends the order to the kitchen and ensures the selection is in compliance with the patient’s diet order. For any patients missed during this time, they will receive a meal tray with the standard first choice of the day and any noted preferences.

The new system replaces the former “marked menus” where patients selected their choices through a paper menu the day prior to the meal service. The old process involved limited face-to-face contact between health care providers, food service staff and patients, and only captured a fraction of the patient population.

*VGH units not participating in this program: Burns, Trauma & High Acuity Unit; Cardiac Surgical ICU; Diagnostic and Treatment Unit; Emergency Room; Health Centre East & West; ICT and the Psychiatric Assessment Unit.