Equipment update boosts hospital kitchen’s efficiency and productivity

Until early November last year, the production kitchen at Indiana University Health’s Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis consumed excessive amounts of water and energy while limiting what could be produced. This forced the kitchen into buying precooked products, especially proteins, that limited flexibility in producing special diet meals. The kitchen’s antiquated cook-chill equipment also took up space and tied down the facilities department with constant requests for maintenance and repairs.

Now, all of those problems have been addressed thanks to a major upgrade that saw the outdated equipment replaced with modern alternatives that allow faster, more efficient and flexible production.

“Instead of the tumble chiller we put in roll-in blast chillers,” explains Jane Ewing, executive director of nutrition & dietetics. “We had two huge Chester Jensen kettles that are not even made any more. We replaced one with a really nice state-of-the-art Groen kettle with the automatic agitator, and instead of a second kettle we put in a pair of roll-in Rational combi ovens so we can now prepare food in the ovens, then roll it out and into the blast chillers. It gives us a much larger cooking capacity and just a better quality of food.”

The changes allow more in-house production while streamlining the use of labor.

“We’re getting away from precooked meats and doing our own now,” Ewing notes. “That’s been one of the big assets.”

Previously, she explains, the kitchen declined to cook some proteins because of concerns that the tumble chiller unit just didn’t cool the product quickly enough. That is no longer a concern as the blast chiller not only brings temperatures down quickly but also provides immediate and reliable documentation.

In-house scratch production gives the kitchen more menu flexibility, Ewing says. “If we make it ourselves instead of using convenience foods, we can better control the amount of sodium and [other] additives that go into the food.”

That’s an especially critical factor at a facility like IU Health Methodist, she notes.

“This is an acute-care hospital where we do a lot of transplants and [other specialized procedures] where the diet orders are often very restricted, and it’s very hard to find [preprocessed] foods that meet those parameters and still have variety for our patients.”

The changeover has not altered staffing levels, but it has reordered them. That necessitated a fair amount of retraining, which is still ongoing as the kitchen continues to tweak recipes and production procedures to get maximum efficiency out of the new equipment and capabilities.

For example, the kitchen is now turning out master sauces that can be used in a variety of dishes. It is also now making its own soups and pasta sauces, which previously were purchased prepared.

“It’s so much more labor-efficient with [features like] the automatic agitator on the kettle so there’s no need for any manual work on it whatsoever,” Ewing says. She adds that staff satisfaction has been “incredible” due to not only the changes that make life easier in the kitchen but also “just to see some attention and resources put into our area.”

Ewing gained administrative approval for the renovation and new equipment at least in part by stressing the savings the more efficient new equipment would deliver.

“We had a real old ice builder and tumble chiller in there that took up a huge amount of space and used an unbelievable amount of energy and water,” she says. “Our facilities department projected we would save about $40,000 a year in energy and water [with the new equipment],” she cites, “so it will definitely pay for itself fairly quickly.”

The changes also made the facilities department happy because the old production equipment was a perpetual headache. “They were constantly in there repairing [the various units],” Ewing recalls. “They estimated they spent about eight hours a week just maintaining and repairing the equipment.”

The production kitchen supports both retail and patient meal service for IU Health Bloomington, where the average daily census is 550 and the multistation retail food court serves some 2,500 customers a day. The kitchen also produces bulk food for IU Health’s University Hospital, which is located nearby.