3 Ways to Advocate for Higher Standards in Your Dining Room
April 9, 2012
This week, the health care industry celebrates National Patient Advocacy Week (April 9th – 13th), which started me thinking about how senior living communities can advocate on behalf of residents for higher standards in the dining room.
Here are three easy tips for fostering hospitality and service improvement in your community:
- Shift your service focus to put residents’ needs first—and encourage your dining service team to do so as well.
- Teach your staff the importance dining has for the overall health and well-being of the community.
- Share your copies of Kind Dining® Connection with your staff. The Be Kind tips are perfect for passing out to servers or posting in the break room. The Activities Director or Dining Manager will appreciate the Table Tip. News and best practices articles will be helpful to managers and team leads.
Reader Letter: Dad and the Mystery Mush
April 5, 2012
Dear Cindy,
No mystery mush for me, please.
Your recent Kind Dining® Connection article, Mechanical Art Comes of Age, brought to mind a situation with my Dad that happened 4 years ago when he was in the physical rehab center.
They brought him his meal; we couldn’t identify it. We could see it was some sort of pureed protein mush in a heap. Hot dogs were on the menu. He tasted it. Sure enough, hot dog.
I said, “Dad, why are they pureeing your food?”
He said, “I don’t know; it’s been that way since I got here. That nurse I don’t like walked into my room and said, ‘I need to see your teeth.’ So, I showed her my teeth. And my food has always arrived pureed.”
My Dad could chew just fine with his teeth, although he was missing some teeth (we got him dentures not long after).
So I asked, “Well, did she ask you if you had problems chewing?”
“No,” Dad said.
“Were you eating pureed food at the hospital? Could the doctor have sent this order?” I pressed.
“No, I had regular food at the hospital,” Dad said, “She’s the only one who has ever given me pureed food.”
Needless to say, I tracked down someone who could change my Dad’s orders to regular food, but I was shocked a nurse would just look in his mouth, never ask him, and then make the decision to send pureed food.
Also, according to Dad, pureed hot dog is really disgusting.
<shudder>
Keep up the good work, Cindy. Our beloved elders need us to raise dining service standards in our healthcare and senior living communities.
LLF
New eyes’ for nursing homes through QIS in Long-Term Living Magazine
March 8, 2012
Even when putting resident needs first is a clear intention, it may take new eyes to see where and how transforming change must occur.
My latest e-article for Long-Term Living Magazine, New Eyes’ for Nursing Homes Through QIS, talks about the new QIS expectations and how to take a fresh perspective in your senior living community.
How about you? What do you see when you look around your senior living community? Are better relationships being built? Are you defining and achieving higher standards of service quality? Are you educating staff about new skills and responsibilities?
I’d love to hear about your challenges and successes. Feel free to post your stories below in the comments section.
Looking for hospitality training? 100 people experienced Kind Dining® in January, here are 6 of the top comments:
January 29, 2012
1. I enjoyed being here….. I learned something I never thought of. Cindy made it interesting in a way that made me listen and learn.
2. Lots of good information for all levels of staff.
3. Cindy was really able to keep the groups attention by having us interact. I really liked that..it was informative and brought clarity on several unclear procedures.
4. I am impressed. Although I did dislike having to leave my office… Once I was here I appreciated the class. “I am a person who can be a little hard to convince” .{“change in dining is comin”}
5. The class was very informative. I walked away with a little more knowledge of dining and services and tools we need to make a better experience for residents and guests of my community.
6. This is a great program and everyone benefits from it. We take our residents for granted and the only thing they ever want is a smile, hello, and thank you.
I enjoy teaching Kind Dining (hospitality and customer service) workshops and helping community staff at all levels learn new skills to implement right away which improves their service at mealtimes. I will be sharing more about my recent experience in St. Louis, working with Bethesda Health Group Inc. A company which is bringing Higher Standards of service to their residents, through skill development and relationship building of their staff. Read more in my next Kind Dining® Connection newsletter…
Servers: Nursing vs Foodservice
March 9, 2009
Are servers working in the nursing department as caring as the food service department staff about serving a meal? This question often tops the list of challenges in senior living communities., whether I’m working with a skilled nursing home, assisted living community, residential care community, or Continuing Care Community (CCRC).
A dining director in a CCRC remarked last week that servers from their nursing department (nurse aides) care about the residents, however many don’t care to learn new skills about meal service. She exacerbated, ” they don’t see a need to spend the time learning because they believe they already know everything about the residents”. Read more
Insight #1-Sharing personal information…
January 9, 2009
What I find most often when talking with teens and young adults serving meals to residents is that they are just coping with how to address uncomfortable situations with residents. Most try to be polite, many admit to not having enough patience, and some are plain honest about their own rudeness to discourage uncomfortable conversations.
