eZine September 2009CommentWhat value does an organisation get from sending people to conferences? We assessed the value of supporting a delegate to a good conference following this month's annual Institute of Hospitality in Health Care meeting in Sydney. We concluded that we should be able to see ROI in one or more of:
The IHHC conference was excellent and gave every organisation represented there the opportunity to benefit in all those ways. Food Management always sends one or more delegates to this conference, knowing that we'll meet many dozens of people who share our professional interests and concerns, who'll share best practices and expand our horizons. Our summary of the 2009 conference focuses on some of the sustainability papers. What's IHHC, you ask? It's an Australian professional organisation for support service managers and personnel in health and aged care. Its conference programmes have material for all support service disciplines. Tip - Water Footprinting"When so few people attend a presentation on this topic it's probably because they think they know everything, they don't know anything, or they think it's not important. All three are terrifying.". These were the introductory comments of the of the speaker on "Carbon trading - business as usual is no longer an option", to his audience of five at IHHC. (The other several hundred missed one of the best papers of the conference.) We're in the era of carbon trading and everyone needs to know what it is, why it's important, and how it will affect their business, whether they agree with the concept or not. Equally as important, but predicted to hurt us sooner, is our water footprint. Click here. Soon we'll all be measuring and comparing water footprint KPI as well as water consumption KPI, and best practice improvement will be hot. Water footprinting's importance means we should see research and conference topics like "comparative water footprints in cleaning/laundry/linen services" and "managing the water footprint of the menu". As responsible professionals we need to start thinking about and discussing these issues and sharing best practices. Whilst on water - did you know that each 500 ml glass of water served uses about 1.9L of water (in the glass, plus ice and washing water)? The restaurateur who did this calculation now serves water only to customers who request it. Click here. In health and age care we won't be rationing drinking water but for sure we'll be monitoring the drips (water and human), recycling water wherever possible, and ensuring equipment purchase criteria include water conservation and recovery. Trend - Room ServiceRoom or bedside service is a huge patient satisfier. The service ranges from a 24 hour menu available on demand, to meals at regular hours delivered by the person who took the meal order. Key success factors that make a patient feel like a valued customer are personal service and the short lead time between ordering and receiving a meal. For managers considering a change to bedside or room service the trade-off decision will usually be "higher labour cost or higher patient satisfaction?". Results from hospitals that have introduced room service are reported as: Click here.
Advantages to food services are reported as:
Question -Does room service have best practice components that other support services could benefit from? Are there ways that the principles of personal service, short lead time between ordering and receiving a service, the opportunity to choose, could be applied in other services? We think it's worth exploring. Best Practice - Valid Benchmarking
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