Sometimes it’s the tried-and-true data analysis tool that yields the most powerful benefit even as new apps and gadgets are attracting all the attention.
For instance, benchmarking has stood the test of time as an outstanding tool that can be used with great effectiveness in healthcare food service—providing strong insights for evaluating existing programs, informing expansion decisions, and even motivating staff.
When it comes to food service departments, benchmarking allows them to collect and share data about their operations and to compare key performance indicators with dozens of organizations of similar size and function. For instance, members of the Association of Healthcare Foodservices (AHF) can access food service operations data collected from hundreds of hospital systems and long-term care facilities participating in its benchmarking program.
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I have used this benchmarking database to help make the best decisions on multimillion-dollar investments into our food service department at Reading Hospital, where I serve as director of nutrition services.
Four years ago, our administration invested in renovations that included a major update to our kitchens and the addition of a state-of-the-art retail facility, with the goal of moving patient meals to the room service model.
The data showed that for a facility like ours, which serves 1,200 to 1,500 patient meals per day, moving to room service meant we needed to increase our staff by as many as 14 full-time equivalents. Without clear comparison data, it would have been difficult to agree on this increase in staffing.
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Ensuring that room service was appropriately staffed at the outset contributed to the success of this transition, as we strove to meet the initial 45-minute delivery window. It also provided a platform for accurately anticipating reduced requirements for food and supplies, which offset the increased labor costs.
Our smooth transition and investments in room service paid off. Patient satisfaction scores rose from the 60th to the 80th percentile immediately after room service implementation, and we quickly boosted this to a sustained 89th to 90th percentile rank for overall satisfaction.
The value of these data-driven insights crystallized for me when a new CEO sought a review of our operations. I shared 12 months of benchmarking data as submitted to the AHF benchmarking program. At this point, we had been benchmarking for more than 15 years. Years of using data, and making adjustments when the metrics showed that we could do better, meant that we had been continuously improving.
It also meant we knew we were operating efficiently, and we could document it.
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As co-chair of the AHF benchmarking committee, I have seen many cases where benchmarking took the guesswork out of decision-making for major changes on the horizon, like the addition of new facilities or a major merger. At the same time, the data helps engage and provide meaningful targets to motivate individual members of the food service team—staff members who are on the front lines interacting with patients.
Increasingly, food service is being recognized as a key to patient satisfaction and critical to the core mission of healthcare systems. This makes it more important than ever that food service leaders effectively use benchmarking to align with the organization’s financial and quality goals.
Margaret Kipe is Director, Nutrition Services, at Reading Hospital in Reading, Pennsylvania. She is co-chair of the Benchmarking Committee at the Association for Healthcare Foodservice.