Florida Hospital Orlando (see more articles like this)

Pineapple upside down cake, chocolate raspberry torte, pecan pie, flan, and Valencia orange cake are just a few of the new, individually made desserts that are now being offered to inpatients at Florida Hospital.  To enhance the patient experience and create a wow factor for patients, chefs at the hospital’s food production center are changing the way they make dessert.   

“It may seem like a small thing, but patients in the hospital look forward to their meals being delivered each day they are with us.  And for many, the dessert is often the best part of the meal.  We want our patients to be pleasantly surprised when they see the personal desserts created for them and know that we really care about their experience here,” said Uriel Cruz, executive chef at Florida Hospital.

Previously, chefs at Florida Hospital prepared large sheet cakes each day that were cut into pieces to make desserts for patients.  However, the desserts were sometimes inconsistent because one patient might get a soft middle piece and another patient might receive a harder corner piece.  Additionally, sometimes the size of the pieces varied, and sometimes there was a lot of cake left over.  But, beginning this month, desserts are being individually made for each patient.

“This is really the beginning of a journey to advance our menu and improve the food we offer our patients.  While the food we serve is very tasty and nutritionally complete, our menu has not changed in 15 years.  We are in the process of going through the menu and recommending several changes that will enhance it.  We had to start somewhere, and we thought it was best to begin with dessert – most people’s favorite part of the meal and the proverbial icing on the cake,” Cruz said.

Later this summer, Florida Hospital plans to pursue a similar initiative with breakfast.  Lunch and dinner will then follow.  The Florida Hospital Food Production Center prepares nearly 5,000 meals a day for patients.
                              
With seven hospitals and 16 Centra Care walk-in medical centers, Florida Hospital is one of the largest not-for-profit hospitals in the country, caring for more than one million patients each year.  The more than 1,900-bed hospital system has several major centers of excellence including Cardiology, Cancer, Neuroscience, Orthopaedics, and Diabetes.