Almost every healthcare facility provides room service in some capacity again. Whether you operate a hospital or a long-term care facility, your top priorities for room service are efficiency, safety and temperature retention.

Foursquare Healthcare operates 11 locations across the state of Texas. Corporate Chef Mark Gavriel and Director of Nutrition Services Becky Foster explain how 4 of their Cambro products have made major improvements to their room service.  

1. Heat Multiple Bases at One Time

Are you still charging your bases one at a time? The Camduction® Complete Heat System heats up to 20 Camduction bases at once in 4 to 6 minutes, accommodating up to 300 meals per service and eliminating the need to “hurry up and wait.”

When you’re serving 100 residents, heating bases one at a time can be very time consuming and can sometimes create the necessity for a designated person to handle just the bases. With foodservice operations as a whole experiencing labor shortages, you can’t afford to waste resources on a time consuming process.

“The way I train our cooks to use them is to use 10 at once and then as soon as you’re done with 10 you load the next 10. While they’re charging, you’re serving out the next 10 and you have a continuous flow of warm bases that you’re not waiting on,” said Gavriel.

2. Serve Meals on Non-Skid Trays

When a resident receives their meal, the last thing they want to see is their beverage or sides toppled over on their tray. Presentation is huge and your trays can make or break that with their functionality and aesthetics.

“We need [the Non-Skid Versa Camtrays®] in our hall carts because employees will push the hall carts out like they’re in a race sometimes. Anything that we can do to keep the beverages from toppling over makes a better experience for our residents because they don’t get a tray that all soaking wet from the beverages,” said Foster.

Non-Skid Versa Camtrays have a special coating to prevent spills and eliminate the need for costly and wasteful tray mats.   

3. Use Quiet Meal Delivery Carts

Loud, clunky meal delivery carts can disrupt the peace of everyone in the hallway. Cambro Meal Delivery Carts are designed to transport trays quietly and smoothly.

“They’re very durable, and as far as institutional equipment, I would say they’re the most aesthetically pleasing in the sense that they’re not like eyesores in anyway; they’re very muted and very subtle,” said Gavriel. “They’re short enough that I can see over them, they hold heat pretty well and they’re very easy to clean.”

4. Prep with Quality Sheet Pan Racks

Consistently buying new sheet pan racks is something many foodservice operators assume is just part of the job. However, you can finally break the cycle with Cambro’s Ultimate Sheet Pan Rack.

“The reason we started buying [the Ultimate Sheet Pan Racks] in the first place is because we would have the cheap aluminum sheet pan racks and they would break down every year or so we would have to buy another one because they just weren’t durable,” said Foster.

The Ultimate Sheet Pan Rack is designed from the same durable, rust proof material as the Elements Series Camshelving® and available with rust-free casters.

“This is going to sound weird, but the way it rolls is what I like about it. The way it actually hits the ground, it’s very smooth. I don’t feel like it’s going to topple over,” said Gavriel. “Even the way sheet pans slide in and out is smooth, they don’t drag like the metal racks. You know sometimes when metal on metal hits you get those nails on a chalkboard? I don’t get that with this rack.”  

Read More Healthcare-Related Blogs:

• Medical Center Depends on Cambro Products to Provide 5,000 Patient Meals a Day
• Thank You for Your Service: Veterans Enjoy Meals Served on Special Camtrays
• How to Elevate Your Healthcare Tray Meal Service

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: ADRIANA DESIDERIO IS THE DIGITAL CONTENT MANAGER AT CAMBRO.