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March 2000 - Reprinted with permission of CynterPubs Information Resources
Health center automates processess with The Brandon Regional Health Center, part of the Brandon Regional Health Authority in Manitoba, Canada, services the City of Brandon and the surrounding area covering more than 100,000 people, needed a system that could track the recipes and inventory for all its patients' different diets. They turned to Computrition Inc., which released its Windows Foodservice Operations Management software system designed to automate foodservice operations. Components of this system include menu planning, purchasing guides, inventory control, production planning, recipe management, costing and nutritional analysis. FISR spoke with Kristi Chorney, manager of production and clinical services at Brandon Regional Health Center, to find out how the FOM software system is working for them. FISR: How are you using the Foodservice Operations Management software? Chorney: We're using it to print and to quantify our recipes so we can print out the recipe and the number that we need. We also have our inventory items entered and our menus for all the different diets that we provide at the facility, such as regular, restricted sodium, diabetic, pediatric diet, etc. FISR: What type of functionality does it have that you did not have prior to installing it? Chorney: It has the nutrient analysis component so I can go back or construct a menu based on the nutrient guidelines that we follow for a specific diet. So if we have a restricted sodium diet and we only want to be at 2 grams of sodium, I can see if I'm there for that day, or if I've gone over. And then I can go back and modify the menu based on what I need to change to meet that requirement. It also gives the food cost of the whole production for the entire facility for the day. Or if we just want to know what a specific patient is costing us with a specific diet we can cost it out for a day, or as the whole cycle. FISR: What was involved in the rollout and installation of this system? How long did it take? Chorney: We contacted other facilities that were using Computrition and did a reference check. We had to go through the different products that were available and decide what we thought would be the best for our facility and what we were planning to do in the future. We had to obtain the funding, of course. We're still rolling out the system, having started around August. We're not only implementing the food operations management side, we're also doing the diet office side so they're going along together, and we're just keeping up as fast as they can release a new version of the product. FISR: What have you seen in terms of savings by automating your processes? Chorney: Because we're not using the system to its full extent right now, we don't realize a lot of savings at this point, just because it's in the implementation process. But I can see it becoming a very valuable tool for determining meal costs for the day. If we have a certain dollar value that we're working towards achieving we can quickly pull it up on the screen and see what a menu day is costing us, and we can modify our recipes or menus to fit the budget. Previously, we believed if we changed a certain menu item the end result should mean we were saving, but we weren't quite sure how much. FISR: What other benefits have you realized? Chorney: At least for right now, it offers a better grip on nutrient analysis. Once Computrition releases more of the software where we are able to use the purchasing and inventory parts of the program, then we'll see those benefits as well. FISR: How will the use of this software enhance customer service and product quality? Chorney: We should be able to produce a consistent product. We always had standardized recipes, and this will help with that. We will probably be more accurate - instead of thinking we're doing something, we will know for sure if we are or not. We will be better able to meet our standards. FISR: Were there any problems with the implementation? Chorney: There have been delays in the release of the product. We thought things would be released a little sooner. FISR: Which systems does this software tie into? Chorney: We are going to integrate and interface with our finance system. And also, one of our main vendors has a program that we order through, so we'll be interfacing with that as well. And we also will be interfacing with the ADT system - Admission Discharge Transfer - that's more for the trade tracker side of things. We see interfaces with the foodservice side getting going by September. We have to do some internal things, as well, where we're switching our finance system from an old network to a new network. It also ties into our main vendor ordering system, our ADT CPI-Central Patient Index. FISR: What type of training is offered on the software? Chorney: We do most of our training over the phone. We have also had site visits with the implementation side of the training, which is done in small groups of either one-on-one or two-on-three. FISR: What are the benefits to point-and-click design? Chorney: Functionality and ease of use, ease in training staff, ease in making changes so it's not a cumbersome, awkward way of getting around to make a change. If you want to make a change, you just point, click, drag and drop. It's wonderful. FISR: How can this system expand as the needs of your business expand? Chorney: I'm told by our IT department that it has everything it needs in the way it was constructed, and that we will be able to roll it out to other facilities easily. It fits in with the big picture that our IT department has with interfacing. FISR: Can you add other modules to it? Chorney: I think we have all the modules. We also have the diet office side which keeps track of the patients and what diet they're on, what they're allowed and not allowed, tray tickets, printing and exchange patterns, and more.
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