Why integrated dining technology matters to your facility
It’s no secret that when people are shopping around and choosing a senior community, one of their top considerations is the quality of the dining program. After all, as the theme for National Nutrition Month reminds us, food connects us all. Everyone wants healthy meals that they can enjoy on their own or in a community with friends and family, and they want those meals to support their efforts to live long and healthy lives.
Because nutrition and dining are such critical components of resident health and satisfaction, they need the same attention to detail and coordination as clinical care. Having dining and nutrition information integrated with your EHR makes that coordination easier for your staff and offers several benefits.
Clinical benefits
The first and foremost clinical benefit is always going to be resident safety. Making sure basic information like names and room numbers are correct helps ensure you’re serving the right meal to the right resident. Delivering a meal to the wrong resident might seem like a minor issue, but in reality, this kind of error can be a reportable event, leading to hospitalizations and regulatory sanctions. Having basic diet information integrated with resident identifiers in your EHR is one way to help reduce errors.
Integrated clinical details about food allergies and consistency requirements is another major benefit. This information is critical to minimize the potential for life-threatening allergic reactions or choking due to the wrong food consistency. Nutrition management tools should also offer automated weight tracking so clinical staff can monitor and prevent significant weight losses or gains.
Monitoring nutritional intake is another significant clinical benefit. When a nutrition management tool can evaluate factors such as calorie counts and nutrients, and integrate that information into the EHR, the clinicians have a more complete picture of each resident’s health. This helps them quickly make dietary changes when needed, such as adding more calories to a meal or adding protein to support weight gain. Integrated nutritional analysis data is also important when working with patients who are transitioning on or off of tube feeding, and to help avoid malnutrition. This supports better overall health outcomes but also helps ensure a facility’s compliance with quality measures.
Improving operational efficiency
Food costs have remained stubbornly high, which means dining operators must effectively manage inventory while still focusing on resident safety, high quality and regulatory compliance. If your dining solution is integrated with your EHR, the food order system will have up-to-date data on your census and the dietary needs of your residents, allowing you to see comprehensive data and make better decisions about ingredients to purchase. This helps eliminate manual counting and the potential to overlook key items, which saves time, improves accuracy and supports resident health outcomes.
System-generated shopping lists also help reduce waste by ordering only what you need, based on resident data in your EHR. Some systems, including MealTracker, even have components that identify where food supplies are stored, which helps dining staff find items they need quickly, so they can work more efficiently.
Because facilities need to follow standardized recipes for a range of resident needs, there are many component ingredients required. Advanced nutrition management tools can track the ingredients you have on hand to create a “first draft” purchase order. This gives staff a head start so they can work more efficiently with your food vendors, and helps facilities adhere to regulations by supporting precise ingredient and portion control.
Some nutrition management systems are also updating their tools to move away from the need to input free text, instead giving users structured data to choose from to complete forms. This helps reduce errors and omissions of data that can affect resident safety and satisfaction.
Healthy, happy residents
Because food is such an important part of resident satisfaction in senior communities, it makes sense to invest in technology that can help you keep people safe, healthy and satisfied. There are robust tools available that meet the needs of different sized facilities that can scale as your organization grows and changes. Whether you’re simply looking for a basic tray card, a recipe and menu solution or for consultations on menu development to support your residents, it pays to invest in dining operations technology to support better clinical outcomes and help your staff work efficiently.
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Amy Wootton and Angela Gardener
Amy Wootton, RDN, is a registered dietitian licensed in the state of Florida with over 18 years of experience in clinical nutrition leadership for senior communities as well as acute care, food service management, nutrition informatics, and wellness education. Amy is an active member of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, was appointed Vice Chair on the Interoperability and Standards Committee, and is the leader of the Academy’s Nutrition Care Process Workgroup. Amy most recently accepted a Leadership Award from the Florida Academy of Dietetics. She has achieved years of diversified experience in all spectrums and disease improvement and prevention throughout each lifespan. Amy is a dedicated leader and is passionate about the success of nutrition interventions as an electronic solution to healthcare crises.
Angela Gardener is a registered dietitian board-certified in gerontological nutrition by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. With over 20 years of experience, she has worked as a facility RDN, regional RDN, and corporate RDN, managing multiple accounts in skilled nursing and long-term care. Her expertise spans acute care, cardiac rehabilitation, diabetes, dialysis, bariatrics, and wellness, with a primary focus on long-term care. Angela holds a master’s degree from the University of Alabama and is pursuing her doctorate in clinical nutrition at the University of North Florida. A subject matter expert in clinical practices, operations, and regulatory compliance, she has led teams to achieve minimal survey citations across numerous state and federal surveys.
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