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32 • FOODSERVICE EQUIPMENT & SUPPLIES • JUNE 2016 a pro you should know Julie L. Jones Director, Nutrition Services Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, Columbus, Ohio By Amelia Levin, Contributing Editor FE&S;: So, we have to ask. What's the secret to providing fresh, quality food at such high volumes? JJ: In our system we have about 40 for- mally trained chefs, and many have come from great restaurants so they know how to create a menu that can handle higher volumes. And it's true, we are very busy — we say we can get 2,000 customers through our main café in a 2 to 2½-hour window, even with many build-your-own stations, including customizable options at the grill, deli and pizza stations. Great design and technology play a huge role in this. We have six kiosks, three at each entry point, which allow guests to create their own order. We also have a chef's ta- ble, or rotating action station that changes frequently, a gourmet salad action station in addition to the salad bar, and we offer special events. For instance, we just had our "May the Fourth Be With You" theme with different characters in Star Wars costumes, and people were taking pictures with them throughout the day. FE&S;: I bet the community gardens you have on-site play a role in that. JJ: They do. We conduct a lot of com- munity outreach and health and wellness education through our gardens and differ- ent community programs. We have mem- bers of the community, students, culinary interns and hospital staff who volunteer to help out in the gardens and the patients who participate leave with bags of produce every week during the season from May until about October. We look at our job in healthcare foodservice as the intersec- tion of food and nutrition. While our main job is to determine the patients' clinical nutrition needs and how we deliver that through food, the gardens offer a great learning lab for everyone. FE&S;: Being at the forefront of healthcare foodservice, what major changes do you see coming? JJ: There have been many changes in the healthcare arena. From a business model a couple things are happening. Obviously, there is an uncertainty about reimburse- ment, declining payments for services, and additional regulations, so that has put pres- sure on our healthcare systems to operate very effciently. Many healthcare systems today use a variety of consultants to evaluate how cost effective and effcient we are as an operation. About 5 percent of a healthcare system budget may be for food and nutri- tion services, so it does put us on the radar screen for review. Our goal is to operate as effciently as possible but not sacrifce qual- ity because our consumers demand more from us now than they did 10 years ago. Secondly, the business changes in healthcare have a lot to do with an evolv- ing vision to care for the health of the population, rather than just the individual. Healthcare facilities are trying to keep people well throughout their lives, and keep them out of the hospital, so there has been a tremendous amount of consolida- tion to create these diverse healthcare delivery networks rather than many stand- alone, independent facilities. Right now, everything comes down to cost and fnding that balance of making sure you are satisfy- ing patients — but not at a level where you're draining huge resources. In foodser- vice, we are not the ones doing the brain surgery, so we're more focused on trying to make sure we have the technology and systems in place to be more effcient with