A systematic approach to reduce hospital food waste based on patient experience

Abstract

Background/Aims Organisational research has been shown to enhance the quality of hospital diet services. This study investigated methods to reduce food waste in the inpatient facilities of a large teaching hospital in Sri Lanka. Methods A patient experience survey was conducted to assess the quality of hospital diets. A new diet process was formulated and evaluated based on the results. Results Patients were satisfied with the food and food service quality, but preferred to eat homemade food during longer hospital stays. Before the intervention, 55% of breakfast meals, 62% of lunch meals and 57% of dinner meals were wasted. Post-intervention evaluation showed a significant reduction in food waste to less than 4% for all meal types. Conclusions Offering patients the opportunity to express meal preference through the diet ordering process reduced hospital food waste to less than 4% in total.