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Hospitals and other institutions through the United States are leveraging their food service operation to support environmental and human health.
By creating a sustainable food service vision statement and policy, hospitals move from isolated projects, sustained by the interest and involvement of a few staff, to a formal framework for understanding and making progress.
Conducting an inventory or assessment before setting the policy and plans is recommended as part of this process in order to include effective goals, benchmarks and tracking, and performance systems.
Adoption of a… Read More
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Hospital’s food and nutrition departments can help ensure healthy food access both within and outside their walls.
Expanding healthy food access
Many health care system staff — especially those working in food service, nutrition, and procurement departments — are pursuing activities to increase access to healthy foods.
At the same time, community benefit staff are undertaking community health activities to address health priorities such as food insecurity, diet-related diseases, increasing fruit and vegetable consumption.
By working together, these groups can share expertise and resources… Read More
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Chefs and health care food professionals are reimagining hospital food’s potential one meal at a time. Using the health care setting to model healthier food choices and making more sustainable foods available to patients, employees, and visitors has many benefits including:
Improved health and well-being for patients, employees, and visitors
Increased reported satisfaction from both employees and patients on scoring measures
Enhanced employee productivity
Serving as a powerful recruitment tool and regional differentiator for attracting top talent to the hospital.
Greater food service… Read More
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Here you will find guidance, resources, tools, and ways to engage with your peers and other stakeholders across the value chain to support your food journey and help achieve your organization’s priorities and goals.
The way our food is produced, processed, transported, consumed, and disposed of has profound impacts on individual, community, and planetary health. Hospitals and health systems across the country are achieving their organizational priorities by focusing on food-related initiatives.
Make the case
Core values for a better food system
These values underpin the goals… Read More
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Build healthier food environments for your patrons through education, promotion, and marketing of healthy foods and beverages at your facility.
Healthy food environments include the food itself – whole or minimally-processed – as well as community culture. Hospitals can promote community health by offering culturally-relevant, nourishing food that honors communities’ food traditions and protects against food-related chronic disease.
As promoters and protectors of community health, hospitals can use procurement and related strategies to foster healthy and resilient communities.
Sample… Read More
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Health care facilities offer healthier menus by working with farmers to purchase locally and sustainably grown products, reducing the amount of meat they purchase and serve, and going beyond their walls to help meet the food needs of their community. This cohort will provide partners a space to learn about new trends and technologies and collaborate with their peers on implementation strategies. Sessions will cover ways to improve the sustainability of food service operations and support healthy food access, local food economies, and resilient food systems.
Target audience: Sustainability… Read More
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Purchase locally, sustainably, and equitably produced foods to increase the quality of food you serve, support producers in your community, and build a healthy, sustainable, and resilient food system.
Our guidance leads you through a set of local, sustainable, and equitable food purchasing strategies for authentically and successfully planning and implementing food service programs that can be tailored to help you achieve your goals.
Values-based purchasing
This phrase describes institutional purchasing that prioritizes a defined set of values beyond lowest cost. Health Care Without Harm… Read More
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Health care is joining organizations across the country in the goal to reduce food waste by 50% by 2030.
Food can be wasted but is never “waste.” As a valuable resource, it does not belong in a landfill. Landfilling food contributes to climate change and is a missed opportunity for addressing food insecurity. Our guidance, which aligns with the EPA food recovery hierarchy and evolving state and federal regulations, leads you through each strategy from source reduction to food donation to recycling and will help you make a plan for achieving your waste reduction goals.
Assemble the… Read More
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Build healthier food environments for your patrons through education, promotion, and marketing of healthy foods and beverages at your facility.
Type: Basic page
Hospitals are offering healthier menus, working with farmers to purchase locally and sustainably grown products, moving toward plant-forward menus, and going beyond their walls to help meet the food needs of their community in an effort to support the health of their patients, staff, surrounding community and the environment. Food service data can be complicated by the accessibility of the data and a number of different data owners.
Note: Please indicate on the application which areas of food service data is being collected from: patient meals, cafeteria, catering, and/or vending.
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Join Practice Greenhealth
Practice Greenhealth is the health care sector’s go-to source for information, tools, data, resources, and expert technical support on sustainability initiatives that help hospitals and health systems meet their health, financial, and community goals.
Who We Are
Practice Greenhealth is the leading sustainable health care organization, delivering environmental solutions to more than 1,500 hospitals and health systems in the United States and Canada. Partnership opportunities include hospitals, health systems, community health organizations, NGOs, nonprofits, government, academic institutions, and the health care value chain.