Diet Office Management

If you answered "Yes" to any of these questions, your diet office needs the automation help that the DFM Diet Office Management System can provide. In today's competitive market, healthcare dollars do not need to be spent on personnel performing repetitive, clerical tasks that a computer system can easily perform. Why not let DFM relieve your staff of these time-consuming, tedious tasks in order to meet your goals of operational efficiency and patient-centered care?

The DFM Diet Office Management System includes all functions necessary to automate your daily diet office activities from collecting patient-specific menu selections to tallying food requirements for production; from sorting patient-specific tray assembly tickets to printing customized nourishment labels for between meal snacks or supplements. A full spectrum of reports, listings and worksheets are provided to help assess, manage and enhance your diet office performance. The Diet Office Management System has so many options to choose from that you will never outgrow what DFM can offer.

• Electronic Patient Master File

All patients admitted to your facility are identified in the Patient Master File. This file contains patient ID information, location, diet and nourishment orders, allergies and related dietary information for menu processing and meal service. A computerized Card-X replaces the manual card system used in so many diet offices. The Card-X can be viewed on-line while entering food selections, permanent selects/deselects, or nourishments.

Patient information may be electronically transmitted from the hospital information system or manually updated by diet office personnel. Diet Office interfaces receive patient admission, discharge and room transfer information, diet orders, future diet changes, nourishment orders, hold tray requests and much more. DFM has successfully interfaced the Diet Office Management System with all major hospital information systems, and developed the first diet office interface to meet HL-7 programming standards.


• Future Diet Order Scheduling

Future diet changes or advanced orders can be scheduled for a patient up to 15 days in advance. No one needs to remember to change a patients diet, or offer a new menu. DFM will automatically print the menu appropriate for the scheduled diet change, allowing the patient to make selections for the diet type to be served, and activate the diet order when scheduled.

• Automated Allergy Management

  During daily menu processing activities, DFM will modify a patient's menu to accommodate food allergies. No more crossing off items or modifying choices by hand. Non-allergenic food substitutions will be offered on the menu in place of the allergy foods.

• Permanent Meal Selections and Tickets

  The Permanent Selection Editor increases patient satisfaction by honoring likes/dislikes and special requests. Items that should always be added to a patient's tray at a specific meal are entered as permanent selections. DFM will remember to add the items to the patient's tray ticket for you. Disliked items can be removed and substituted on the menu with preferred choices. This feature also allows you to define a permanent meal ticket for patients who are not able or interested in making daily menu selections.

• Menu Processing and Selection Options

  The DFM System provides diet-specific menus for up to 500 unique diet types or combinations. Menus may be non-select (standard service) menus or selective menus that offer patients a choice. Selective menus may be presented to patients as a printed menu to mark, as a spoken menu using a portable PC at bedside, or as room service. Each presentation allows you to collect both regular and approved write-in menu items. Once menu selections are collected in DFM they are accessible through an on-line editor for additional changes, write-ins, nutritional analysis and review.

  DFM will automatically head printed menus with each patient's name and ID information, and sort them in the order that they are distributed. DFM will search and print menus throughout the day for new admissions and/or diet changes, providing patients the opportunity to make personal choices. Three menu selection entry options are available to transfer the patient's selections from the printed menu into the computer: optical scanning, 10-keypad numeric entry, mouse (or arrow key) entry.

• Diet Office Management Suite Check+ Menu Checking

  The Check+ Menu Checking features save dietitian and/or technician time, minimize error and increase productivity in your diet office. Through integration between the Diet Office and Nutrition Management Systems, Check+ is automated menu selection checking for:

  a) the number and type of food portions chosen
  b) selections within daily nutrient limits
  c) compliance with exchange meal patterns
  d) menu corrections after a diet order change

  These DFM features eliminate the need to manually review each patient menu for appropriate selections, food group balance, nutrient limits, exchange patterns and more.

• Patient Diet Education

  Enhance your ability to provide patients with timely diet education information. DFM will track patient diet changes and automatically print diet-specific education material for the patient. Reports of patients who receive education material document your services for accreditation.

• Meal Tallies

  Eliminate the need to stop the trayline to wait for food, count menu portions, or prepare substitutions. The Prep Area Meal Tally provides production units with a count of the number of food portions that must be prepared for meal or nourishment service. The Tray Station Tally sorts the food item counts by tray station and nursing unit, providing guidance for trayline setup, batch cooking, and food distribution.

• Tray Assembly Tickets

  Tray assembly tickets are printed just before meal service to include the latest admissions, discharges, transfers and diet order changes. Tray tickets are printed in the order that meal trays are assembled, and include only the items that the patient selected, in trayline station order. Tray tickets for late diet changes and/or admissions can be printed throughout the time trayline is operational, enhancing the timeliness of meal service, minimizing late meals and tray waste, and improving patient satisfaction.

• Nourishment Feedings

  Personalized nourishment tickets or labels can be printed for six separate periods throughout a day. Cyclic default nourishments may be assigned by diet type to serve the appropriate items to new admissions and patients with diet changes, or customized to meet individual patient requests or requirements. Item quantities are tallied and included in production requirements. Nourishments are included in a patient's daily nutrient intake analysis.

  Return to top