QUALITY DINING - NURSING VS DIETARY

Help - we are once again looking at our dining system. We are a 192 bed skilled nursing facility. Our dietary department also provides 170 meals for the assisted living center attached to our building. We are have main floor dining rooms with the majority of residents living on the 2nd or 3rd floor. So we spend a lot of time/effort transporting residents to/from meal in elevators that can handle 4 w/c at the most.

Currrently, each resident's meal is dished in the main kitchen, put on a tray and then transported to each dining area. The hot foods become cold and the cold foods (ice cream, etc.) become warm.

Our dining area feels very institutional - tables of residents in w/cs with trays. The trays contain 2 - 3 small disposable plastic glasses of fluids, the meal is served on a china plate, soup/cereal and coffee come in non-microwavable plastic containers. So if the coffee/soup/cereal is cold when it arrives - you can not readily microwave it. We have large plastic barrells for cover-ups (aka cloth bibs); almost every resident wears a cover-up. The purreed food is blobs of brown, green and tannish mush.

PLEASE SHARE WITH ME WHAT YOU HAVE DONE TO IMPROVE THE DINING ROOM AND EATING EXPERIENCE OF YOUR RESIDENTS.