Healthcare dining trending: Curbside meal program, tech and teamwork challenges and a hospital garden

This month in healthcare dining, Unidine at New Milford Hospital launched a meal order program with curbside pickup. The new initiative lets the hospital dining program add some of the external business it lost when coronavirus forced it to bar visitors.

The dining team at New Milford Hospital came up with this idea when profits were down during COVID. The cafeteria at New Milford Hospital in Connecticut has traditionally enjoyed a robust street business with members of the community—especially the elderly—congregating in the eatery to enjoy its fresh, healthy, scratch-prepared—and economically priced—offerings along with the socialization opportunities which promptly stopped at the start of COVID.

And, Morrison Healthcare's VP of patient experience Laura Knight spoke on an episode of One On One With, Food Management's podcast, about how she combines technology and teamwork on her team. On the pod, Knight discussed her background in both tech and creative fields while also giving a window into the future, as she predicts technology will take on exponentially greater roles in the healthcare foodservice space as time goes on. 

See what else was trending in healthcare this month including a hospital garden, how onsite dining has met the COVID challenge and more.