March/April

Photo Credit: Northwell Health

Chef Tison is certainly going to be busy in the coming months. In addition to his efforts to help Northwell achieve the 90th percentile, the health system just merged with Nuvance Health, adding seven more hospitals to Northwell’s growing healthcare empire. That group of hospitals outsourced its food preparation. Between its 80,000 staff and 5,000 beds across its hospitals – and that’s not counting the Nuvance addition -- Northwell is serving more than 10 million meals a year. “We still have a lot of hospitals where our food is being served by nursing services ,” Chef Tison said. “And there is a big debate about, it should not be their work and they should not be handling the food… At the end of the day, when you look at the job of a nurse, if he/she has an emergency and needs to give some care to a patient, if the food is being delivered, how has it been delivered? The food is going to wait. You know, the patient’s life or care is more important than the food. And that’s why I would like to transfer all the food to be served by food and nutrition, not by assistant nurses.” So, if you watch a Northwell food and nutrition person delivering a patient’s food, you should notice their crisp, clean uniforms and friendly and welcoming demeanor. Chef Tison is working toward having all hospital food delivered by food and nutrition personnel rather than a member of the nursing staff.

Photo Credit: Northwell Health

Northwell is changing the perception of hospital food one step at a time and making a sizable impact on patients all the while. “We purchase $55 million of food every year,” Chef Tison explained. “If we would be a hotel company purchasing $55 million of food per year at a 25% food cost, we would be a $220 million business.”

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