Twenty-first century dietary departments of healthcare institutions use sophisticated technological systems to produce a diverse array of controlled diets based on state-of-the-art ordering and inventory control processes. Savvy hospitals, meanwhile, are hard at work to improve their reputation for food quality. They now turn to hotel “room-service” style systems, which allow patients to order gourmet meals and nutritious snacks around the clock. When the food it serves is as good as the medicine and therapy it provides, a hospital shows how much it values the health and well-being of each patient.
This once-crumbling, historic psychiatric facility was replaced by a $78 million, state-of-the-art hospital for which HOPKINS designed a 12,000 square foot central food preparation kitchen and retherm kitchens for each residential unit. Now patients can have breakfast and dinner in their “homes” and lunch “at work” in the treatment mall.
Hurricane Katrina gave this hospital the reason and the resources to upgrade its thirty-five-year-old, 18,000 square foot dietary department to bring it up and into the twenty-first century. Fortunately, because new equipment could be integrated into the existing utility infrastructure, the fast-track schedule was met to the satisfaction of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
This HDR-designed hospital takes advantage of new technologies in food service equipment design to offer the perks of at-your-service, hotel-style dining to our nation’s military.