Food Service Manual for Health Care Institutions, 3rd Edition

FM Staff

By Ruby P. Puckett
American Hospital
Association 2004, 758 pp.

This latest edition of the Food Service Manual, like its predecessors, offers a comprehensive review of the management ad operation of health care foodservice departments as such, it remains an indispensible guide for all FSDs with responsibilities in that segment.

Among its valuable features are chapters dealing with issues such as developing effective policies and procedures; understanding the advantages and disadvantages of working with contract management companies; using benchmarking and TQM processes as quality improvement tools.

As with previous editions, this new version is filled with instructive charts, graphs, illustrations and examples. For example, the section dealing with tracking financial records includes examples of a daily meal census sheet, a daily food cost tracking sheet and monthly performance report forms.

A final chapter deals with facility-design and equipment selection issues, something increasingly pertinent to directors who find the need to get involved in these functions. the chapter serves as a particularly helpful primer on the subject, even including a product knowledge rundown of major foodservice equipment categories.