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A Burlodge Client - A Progressive Case Study
Burlodge UK has been in business since 1993 and now has over
200 clients across UK. Over 77% of Burlodge equipment sold
to health care clients has been in Acute Care settings while over
20% has been in Long Term Care locations (the balance is production
equipment and pot washers). In Canadian Healthcare, over 33 Million
Meals a year are served using Burlodge Equipment. The experience
this company has in advanced meal system implementation and operational
design is unprecedented. The health care locations that find the
greatest operational savings when implementing Burlodge systems
fall into the range of 100 beds and higher. The common scenario
for these locations can be explained by reviewing a generic case
study of a 220 bed acute care facility who purchased the Burlodge
equipment.
This 220 bed acute care hospital first embraced a food outsourcing
and hot plating approach that has resulted in a small operational
savings in its food service budget. They had been operating like
this for about 5 years when the hospital was faced with a kitchen
fast-approaching obsolescence. Cooking equipment was malfunctioning,
and health and safety challenges in the kitchen were becoming
more of an issue. The kitchen needed to be renovated to meet modern
standards. The hot-belt line was not ergonomically sound, and
hot trays prepared-centrally in the kitchen were not keeping food
temperatures at high enough levels to withstand the distribution
time to the bedside. The hospital and Burlodge investigated many
options to reengineer the food services department and presented
a business case to the hospital for review.
The solution? Eliminate the kitchen entirely. The hospital introduced
a whole new technology: cold plating using outsourced foods. The
hospital uses retherm carts from Burlodge that hold pre-plated
cold foods on patient trays. The trays had been prepared in advance
using a cold beltline process.
The Burlodge Cart holds the trays cold and when programmed to
begin heating a portion of the food tray, the cart begins its
retherm cycle while keeping the food that is to be served cold
at a cold serving temperature ready to present to the patient.
The hospital implemented a cold beltline approach and saved 24%
with the new process. In this new system, individual food trays
are assembled using outsourced foods from reputable food suppliers.
The trays are prepared as close to delivery time as possible
in a 10C environment. Once each tray cart is full, it keeps the
trays cold at 4 C. While being held inside the cart, one side
of each tray is rethermalized while the other side remains cold.
Since the new system has been in place the hospital has seen patient
satisfaction surveys related to Nutrition Services increase and
worker injury decline. While the reengineering initially required
a capital investment, the planned annual savings provides a payback
in less than two years. The investment included asbestos removal
and kitchen renovations to install new flooring and a cold room
for tray assembly.
A review of the original business case shows that the total
number of full-time employees (FTEs) related to patient services
(excluding Clinical Nutrition) was once 27.56. With the new system
in place analysis of the operation confirms the business case
as the FTE compliment is now 18.71.
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