QUALITY IMPROVEMENT
Serving the Dietary and Nutritional Needs of Older Adults
By Cynthia Helzel A
nutritious, flavorful diet is fun- damental to health and quality of life for senior living residents.
However, older adults may face physical and cognitive challenges that make it difficult for them to gain adequate nutrition and satis- faction from their meals. How can providers meet these challenges to ensure optimum nutrition among a resident population with a wide spectrum of needs?
Fresh is best Good food starts with good ingredients. Using fresh, high-quality ingredients rather than canned or processed foods offers the best opportunity for creating healthful, tasty meals. Scratch cooking also reduces or elimi- nates the added sodium, fillers, and fats often present in premade convenience foods.
scratch at Sunrise Senior Living. “That’s really the biggest and best way to improve nutrition and to prepare things that are very flavorful—much more flavorful than you would get if you were opening up a can of something,” said Caitlin Rogers, vice president of dining and senior nutri- tion at Sunrise. Rogers said that her team develops menus
and recipes for nearly 30,000 residents in almost 300 communities. The menus are centrally planned at the corporate level, but communities can choose from nearly 30 different variations. Examples include a sea- food-rich Coastal menu and a meat-and-po- tatoes comfort food menu called Heartland. Each community can further customize its menus with chef specials.
want flexibility, and they want to have input about their menu.” At Vi, chefs at each community create
the menus, which are then approved by the corporate office. “We look to make sure that first of all the quality is there, that they’re using seasonal ingredients, and that there are enough choices, so it’s not repetitive,” said Steve Sandblom, corporate director of food and beverage. “At the very minimum we have a six-week menu cycle, but most of our communities are reinventing the menu every single month.” Resident dining councils are a valuable
tool for gathering feedback about a commu- nity’s menu. They provide an opportunity for residents to indicate the menu items they enjoy or dislike as well as requesting items they’d like to try. Residents can also ask to
“Any menu, no matter what it is, can quickly become stale if the dietary staff doesn’t have a constant focus on variety, color, and plate presentation,” said Cathy Mosley, manager for senior living at US Foods.
This is the principle used at Unidine,
which provides food and dining manage- ment services to more than 160 senior liv- ing communities across the country. “Our foundation is our Fresh Food Pledge, which is fundamental in what we do,” said Tim Bouchard, senior vice president of opera- tions at Unidine. “We don’t buy premade lasagna or premade meatballs. We make all of those types of things in-house.” Season- al menus can be planned around produce available locally, such as ripe strawberries in the spring or tomatoes later in the summer. Likewise, everything is cooked from
42 SENIOR LIVING EXECUTIVE MAY/JUNE 2018
Resident satisfaction Resident satisfaction is just as important as the nutritive attributes of the food itself. If resi- dents don’t like the meals, they’ll eat less and could face a decline in their health as a result. A major key to resident satisfaction is of- fering a variety of menu items and options. “Any menu, no matter what it is, can quickly become stale if the dietary staff doesn’t have a constant focus on variety, color, and plate presentation,” said Cathy Mosley, manager for senior living at US Foods, which serves more than 10,000 health care customers nationwide. “Residents want choices, they
have their own recipes featured for a special occasion, for example. Another key to resident satisfaction is
the dining environment. “Part of provid- ing care for people living in senior care is making sure that we respect residents’ food preferences, including the time of their meals and the environment of their meals,” said Sonal Patel, consultant dietitian/nutritionist and president of HealthyBite LLC. Her company provides medical nutrition therapy to residents in health care settings including senior living. Residents should be encouraged to eat in a
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