On Oct. 31, the Hospital of the College of Pennsylvania (Penn Medication) debuted its new Pavilion, a 17-story, 1.5 million sq. foot constructing with 504 affected person rooms, 47 working rooms and an intense deal with state-of-the artwork know-how and the affected person expertise. Supporting that affected person expertise on the eating finish, hospital ambassadors assigned to every room take customized meal orders from menus that incorporate over two dozen nationally standardized therapeutic diets.
That affected person eating service is managed by FM Top 50 contract firm AVI Foodsystems, which additionally manages eating at Penn Medication’s important hospital and on the new Inexperienced Household Commons multi-station retail eating venue situated on the Pavilion’s first flooring.
Apart from Inexperienced Commons, the Pavilion additionally will host two different stores scheduled to open early subsequent yr, each from famous builders. One will probably be a unit of celeb chef Tom Colicchio’s quick informal Root & Sprig Café idea, which debuted earlier this year on the Kids’s Nationwide Analysis & Innovation Campus in Washington DC. Created particularly for healthcare environments, it is going to serve a menu of sandwiches, salads, soups and breakfast objects, together with vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free choices.
The opposite is the Bower Café from famous native idea developer Thane Wright, which can supply premium espresso drinks together with an assortment of pastries and sandwiches with a deal with pure elements.
The fruit and yogurt bar within the Inexperienced Household Commons presents smoothies smoothies made with contemporary fruits and, quickly, wheat grass grown within the hydroponic cupboard situated within the adjoining salad bar space.
Uncommonly good eating on the Commons
In the meantime, Inexperienced Commons incorporates a menu constructed off the Good Meals, Wholesome Hospitals Platinum Normal standards, which suggests incorporating all kinds of seasonal fruit and veggies, unprocessed meats and scratch-made dishes, in addition to a dedication to waste discount that presently sees some 3,500 kilos of waste a day diverted from landfills via the usage of a pair of onsite biodigester models.
“Our strategy is to carry contemporary, wholesome meals to our clients, employees in addition to guests” says Anthony Avalone, resident director for AVI at Penn Medication.
“After we take into consideration the Good Meals, Wholesome Hospitals initiative, one factor we’re actually happy with is that we received the Platinum Normal from day one,” provides Jeff McClure, AVI’s vp for culinary providers, noting that he understands AVI’s Pavilion operation is the primary to ever obtain that certification proper out of the gate.
“For instance, we took an strategy to decreasing meat purchases and placing extra emphasis on plant-based wholesome objects,” McClure suggests. One instance of this he cites is a not too long ago menued dish that includes roasted candy potatoes served with arugula and different greens, cranberries and shredded apple topped with a chunk of grilled hen and a wholesome dressing, “so 60-70% of the plate was plant and the remaining lean protein.”
Stations at Inexperienced Commons embody Americana, an AVI-developed consolation meals idea emphasizing native elements and a wholesome strategy to the recipes that reduce issues like fats, sugar and sodium and comprise no trans fat. Whereas the idea predates the opening of Inexperienced Commons, Americana has been custom-made to the Penn Medication location with regional choices and recipes, notes McClure. He cites a latest “Smoke and Hearth” dish that includes lean smoked ribs with smokey collard greens accompanied by a contemporary salad and a number of contemporary greens.
To supply the assorted sorts of dishes it menus, the Americana station incorporates a wide range of manufacturing tools equivalent to combi and convection ovens and smoke bins.
“The tools was designed front-forward so we’re capable of prepare dinner a variety of the issues proper in entrance of the friends,” McClure provides.
Excessive-end tools extends to different stations such because the pizza station with its stone pizza oven turning out high-quality personal-sized pies.
There may be additionally Fusion, a station menuing worldwide dishes equivalent to a latest Center Jap creation combining falafel and quinoa with contemporary grilled pita bread, pickled greens, hummus and tzatziki sauce. That was adopted on the station’s day by day delicacies rotation schedule by an Indian combo of hen tikka masala with basmati rice, naan bread and a chickpea and chaat salad. The Fusion station additionally serves breakfast that includes omelets to order, French toast, pancakes and different conventional morning fare, earlier than resetting to a lunch menu in mid-morning.
Different retailers in Inexperienced Commons embody a Dietz & Watson branded deli serving 4 day by day specialty sandwiches which might be made to order on entire grain breads, a grill, a fruit/yogurt bar providing smoothies and a salad bar providing entrée salads with a full complement of obtainable elements for creating custom-made combos. Integrated into the salad bar space are a hydroponic cupboard rising herbs to prime menu objects (and shortly, wheat grass to be used in smoothies), and an idea referred to as Roots that includes plant-based objects.
“It’s superb how common that’s with a variety of the group,” Avalone presents. “Principally, there’s one thing for everybody at Inexperienced Commons that they’ll take pleasure in whereas additionally maintaining a healthy diet,” he provides. “Individuals love the grill, they love the consolation meals they usually can even go down and get one thing at Fusion with its genuine international meals, or they’ll go to the salad bar and actually deal with plant-based objects with some grilled proteins.”
Presently, the salad and yogurt bars are staff-serve as a consequence of COVID issues, however the plan is ultimately to go to some self-serve because the scenario and institutional/governmental insurance policies permit, Avalone says, noting that “we’re already beginning to get approvals to open up some stations, one thing we’ve already began with the espresso and the soup, with the salad bar subsequent.”
Amongst native vendor merchandise supplied at Inexperienced Commons are Merely Good salad jars which might be seize and go salads packaged in jars, that are recyclable. Due to the airtight seal on the jars, the salads have prolonged shelf lifetime of as much as 14 days, easing replenishment issues. They’re supplemented by an array of in-house-made seize and go salads, sandwiches and different dishes.
“Anytime we will incorporate native companies that assist help the group, that’s what it’s all about,” Avalone presents, including that AVI is making particular efforts to ally with women- and minority-owned companies within the space, each as distributors and, if they’re eating places, as pop-up ideas within the cafe.
Notably, Inexperienced Commons operates practically around the clock, from 6:30 a.m. (7 a.m. on weekends) to three a.m. day by day, giving night and in a single day employees entry to high quality meals and beverage choices. The pizza, grill, salad bar and seize and go stations stay open, although with considerably lowered choice.
AVI Foodsystems operates the Inexperienced Household Commons multi-station eating venue at Penn Medication’s new Pavilion facility.
Personalised affected person service
On the affected person eating facet, AVI presents bedside ordering via devoted ambassadors earlier than every meal, a service that accords with the strategy taken by Penn Medication on the Pavilion, the place the affected person rooms function the newest in technological aids and providers. These embody IRIS sensible TVs situated on the foot of every mattress that present not solely leisure and permit management of lights, room temperature and privateness glass however act as digital whiteboards displaying vital affected person data like day by day care plans and names/photographs of the affected person’s care group.
For the meal service, “ambassadors stroll into the rooms similar to a waiter or waitress would and get the orders after discussing the choices based mostly on the affected person’s particular person food regimen,” Avalone explains. The ambassadors use pill computer systems to relay the orders on to the kitchen, the place orders are then ready and assembled, then despatched as much as the flooring, the place they’re served by the ambassadors, offering yet one more interplay with the sufferers.
“It’s an thrilling system as a result of it’s a real-time ordering course of and we’re bodily taking it a half hour earlier than we put that merchandise collectively and sending it proper as much as [the patient],” Avalone notes. “Our entire visitor program, our ambassador program, is all about what number of instances we contact that affected person.”
That features not solely the thrice-daily taking and delivering of meal orders but in addition visits in between with carts providing espresso and snacks, “so the ambassadors are engaged with the client as a lot as doable,” he provides.
The ambassadors “are actually an extension of the nursing group although they’re a part of the foodservice group,” Avalone suggests. “They’ve been adopted by the flooring and continuously get nice suggestions about their customer support and the way they deal with clients.”
Just like the retail eating menus, the affected person menus are replete with contemporary, native elements included into largely from-scratch dishes.
“We don’t use any frozen greens, for instance—it’s all contemporary—and all of the soups and shares are constructed from scratch,” McClure explains. “The meals is ready as it might be in a restaurant, with every part fired to order, plated and despatched proper as much as the affected person’s room.”
Not solely is all of it freshly made as in a great restaurant, however the picks are additionally restaurant high quality, McClure provides, with day by day lunch and dinner specials which might be seasonally modified complementing an “All the time Accessible” menu number of conventional favorites, which themselves bear periodic changes based mostly on recognition, ambassador suggestions, and so on. Salmon and hen pot pie are explicit favorites, and every part is served on china for optimum presentation.
“What number of instances in a hospital do you get a lovely braised brief rib on a parsnip polenta with house-made demi-glaze proper excessive and seasoned with broccoli rabe, which is considered one of our prime sellers?” McClure enthuses. “Our entire philosophy is to carry the restaurant expertise and get the affected person to neglect in regards to the hospital expertise for a half hour and simply take pleasure in a superb meal.”
