Quality of patient meal service in hospitals: delivery of meals by dietary employees vs delivery by nursing employees.

OBJECTIVE

To compare patient assessment of meal-service quality and employee-service orientation in hospitals where dietary employees deliver meals trays and in hospitals where nursing employees deliver meal trays.

DESIGN

Survey.

SETTING

General, medical-surgical (not Veterans Administration) hospitals of 300 to 500 beds with a self-operated foodservice department and a centralized, conventional food production system.

SUBJECTS

552 patients and 192 employees in nine hospitals geographically dispersed in the midwestern and eastern United States. Dietary employees delivered meal trays in five of the hospitals and nursing employees delivered trays in four.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

On a five-point scale, patients indicated level of agreement with 16 statements about hospital meal service. Employees who delivered meal trays rated their agreement with 20 service orientation statements on a five-point scale.

STATISTICAL ANALYSIS

Factor analysis with varimax rotation, chi 2 analysis, and analysis of variance.

RESULTS

Patient assessment of the quality of meal service was multidimensional. Patients gave more positive ratings to characteristics of the personnel delivering the tray than to the quality of the food. Patients in hospitals were dietary employees delivered meal trays rated the quality of food significantly higher (P < .01) than did patients in hospitals where nursing employees delivered trays. Service orientation of the personnel delivering the trays was also multidimensional. Dietary and nursing employees did not differ in their personal motivation toward providing service; however, dietary employees rated the organizational support for providing service significantly higher (P < .001) than did nursing employees. Nursing employees were significantly more positive (P < .05) than dietary employees about their interactions with patients.

CONCLUSIONS

Patient perceptions of service quality differed in hospitals where dietary employees delivered meal trays and in those where nursing personnel delivered trays. Dietary and nursing employees differed in some aspects of their service orientation.