• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.674-681
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• 2008

Hospital malnutrition could be caused by not completing the food served in the hospital. This has been a big problem since it delays the recovery of the patient and extends the length of hospital stay. The purpose of the study was to reduce the plate waste for the DM diet by performing several nutrition service improvement activities. The study was performed in a general hospital with 900 beds. A questionnaire survey was taken by 39 DM patients to obtain their aspect of the hospital foodservice systems and the quality of the meals at the beginning of the study. The amounts of foods served in the hospital kitchen and returned were measured by weights. After the improvement activities, the measurement of the plate waste was performed again for comparison. The average percentage of plate waste for the DM diet was 23.2%. The survey showed no difference by sex, age or duration of admission in plate waste. However, this food wastage percentage showed differences between the patients having a chance to get information about the diet therapy (12.21%) and not having one (26.06%) (p < 0.05). Using a five-point Likert-type scale, the quality of food by its taste was 2.49 (1: very poor, 5: excellent), the temperature score was 3.56 (1: very poor, 5: excellent), and the amount of food served score was 2.95 (1: very poor, 5: excellent), and the preference score was 3.13 (1: very dislike, 5: very like). Nutritional care improving activities were performed by adjusting seasonings, developing new menus, and standardizing cooking methods in order to increase the satisfaction of meal quality. The dietitian's inpatients care protocol was adjusted to expand the nutritional counseling chance for the DM patients. After the improvement activities, the average plate waste was reduced to 14.6%, and the satisfaction of food taste and preference increased to 3.21 (p < 0.001), and 3.36 (p < 0.05) correspondingly. The result shows that, for therapeutic diet patients, food intake could be increased by improving the food service satisfaction by controlling the meal quality and clinical nutritional service activities.

• Korean journal of food and cookery science
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.87-99
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• 1987

The serving temperature control practices were assessed in 20 general hospital's dietetics utilizing centralized or decentralized tray assembly systems. The results of the study were summarized as follows : 1) All of the surveyed hospitals were utilizing conventional foodservice system. The number of dietary employees per bed was very low when comparing with that in America. Working hours of employees per week were approximately two times greater than those in America. 2) When comparing two tray assembly systems, dietary labor hours and costs in centralized system were less than those in decentralized system. 3) When comparing serving temperature practices between two tray assembly systems, the temperatures of meals utilizing centralized tray service were significantly lower than those in decentralized system, and only the steamed rice served in decentralized system was within the acceptable temperature range. 4) There was no significant difference in sensory acceptance scores marked by patients served by two different types of tray assembly systems. The serving temperature was significantly correlated to the patient's overall acceptability.