Hospital Boosts Retail Sales With Automation

FM Staff

The retail food court operation at the University of North Carolina Medical Center in Durham has found that adding a high-tech payment option has helped add about a half a million dollars to its sales since it was introduced earlier this year.

Foodservice Director Angelo Mojica says a previous system, which used paper tags as meal vouchers for visitors and staffers was extremely time-consuming, with several manual counts required to verify the paper trail.

The medical center uses vouchers to give some visitors, interns and employees who have earned rewards a way to get a free meal. The automated system from FreedomPay, along with simplified menu pricing, has allowed speedy payment to be extended not just to voucher holders but all users of the cafe.

Now, anyone can get a 20percent discount by using the FreedomPay card, which is available to staff and visitors alike. To date, Mojica says that between 25 and 30 percent of customers use the automated payment option, speeding up checkout lines.