Improving Nutrition Services to Reduce Plate Waste in Patients Hospitalized Based on Theory of Constraint
Background: Highly plate waste in hospitalized patients has become a problem in Hospitals’ nutrition service unit, this causes adding treatment time for patient’s recovery and making the hospital service inefficient. Objectives: To improve the quality of nutrition unit services by reducing plate wa...
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Summary: | Background: Highly plate waste in hospitalized patients has become a problem in Hospitals’ nutrition service unit, this causes adding treatment time for patient’s recovery and making the hospital service inefficient.
Objectives: To improve the quality of nutrition unit services by reducing plate wastes in hospitals.
Methods: This research uses a cross-sectional approach. The constraint causing analysis is done by observing dominant waste in each menu’s component and conducting FGD (Focus Group Discussion) with the management team, nutrition unit, and other related units. The research sample is plates in total population that are 1,230 plates. Results: In this study, it was found that 26.59% observed plates had food waste. Based on the causes of Constraint emergence, the results showed that steamed rice (41.9%) was mostly wasted menu components on main dish because the taste didn’t meet the respondents’ expectations. Furthermore, fish (46,0%) was the menu components on animal-based side dish that mostly wasted because of the fishy aroma and the thorn of fish. Whereas, Tofu (40,0%) was mostly wasted on plant-based side dish because the bland taste. While, soupless vegetable (49,35) was mostly wasted on vegetable dish because of the taste didn’t meet respondents’ expectations. This is because the existence of SOP (Standard Operational Procedure) has never been evaluated for its implementation and the SOP on food processing is incomplete.
Conclusions: Wasted food reduces the quality of inpatient nutritional services. Recommendation for overcoming constraints are providing training for the nutrition unit on cooking processing skills (removing fishy aroma, adding food flavors, giving menu variations) and conducting food tests regularly to ensure menu quality through taste audits periodically. |
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