Fueled by the knowledge that food is powerful medicine, Northwell's Michelin-starred chefs are bringing restaurant quality food to the menu
Every day, Chef Brian Sauer smooths his white coat before heading up to the patient floors at South Shore University Hospital. Never did he suspect making rounds would be part of his job — but as it turns out, it’s one of his favorite things to do. His visits are not about poking or prodding, discussing test results or upcoming procedures. Instead, as the hospital’s executive chef, he’s there to talk about the food. “Once I walked into a room and a patient started yelling ‘Oh my God! You’re the guy on the back of the menu!’” laughs Sauer. “I felt like a rock star.” Sauer puts his heart and soul into every meal he creates. And he does it all in the name of his dad, who had dementia and was in an out-of-state facility for a couple of years at the end of his life. Sauer, then a chef at a high-end restaurant in Manhattan, wished he could make a change for people like his father. And he found that
opportunity about four years ago at Northwell Health, where leaders had begun to reconsider the importance of hospital food. How was it, they asked, that a health system could offer the most advanced treatments while ignoring the quality of the meals patients were eating throughout their stay? As Sauer discussed joining a newly formed team of executive chefs, it became clear that the health system had embarked on a radical initiative. Northwell Health’s food transformation project was based on the idea that wholesome meals were central to the mission of improving health and quality of life. And that wasn’t all. Northwell’s leaders were proposing that hospital food should taste good, too. Restaurant-level good. Transforming hospital food with a top chef From rubbery mashed potatoes to unidentifiable protein patties covered in glutinous gravy, hospital food has long had a reputation for being flavorless, uninspired and sometimes downright awful. Before Northwell’s great food challenge began, the meals served at its hospitals were no exception. “For years, hospital administrators looked at food not as a benefit to the patient, but purely as a number on the balance sheet,” says Sven Gierlinger, senior vice president and chief experience officer at Northwell Health. ”Everything we were serving was processed, with much of it frozen or canned and containing all sorts of unhealthy ingredients — which is completely counterintuitive to good health.” Click here to read the complete article
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