Mary Spicer and Gary Vorstenbosch see foodservice as a way to make each patient’s stay a little brighter and more comfortable.

Mary Spicer, director of the hospital’s food, nutrition, conference and telecommunications services, and Chef-manager Gary Vorstenbosch took home the gold medal. Their entrée: Grilled Tenderloin of Beef with Pomegranate Barbeque Sauce and Mango Relish with Southwest Polenta Spring Roll and Steamed Asparagus.

Neither the gold medal nor the complexity and quality of the winning entrée came as a surprise to the 370-bed hospital’s patients, physicians and staff. They see and enjoy such culinary prowess each day. But the culinary competition let the rest of the world know that healthcare foodservice has changed dramatically and that PHP has been and continues to be a leader in elevating the industry category’s reputation.

Spicer, a 14-year PHP veteran, never has accepted that healthcare foodservice need only be acceptable, that it needn’t shine. Her goal, she says, always has been “to put hospitality in hospitals,” with food and service that would stand up to any other operation’s. To that end, she instituted a hotel-style room-service program for patients while raising the culinary bar so that the food served nurtures the spirit as well as the body.

Wild Mushroom Enchiladas are among Chef-manager Gary Vorstenbosch’s creations.

Still, like a good restaurateur, Spicer knows and caters to her customers. The demographics of PHP’s patients spurred her efforts to upgrade foodservice standards.

“We’re blessed to be working in a high-income area,” Spicer says. “Our clientele understands room service and they understand amenities. They expect high quality in food and service.”

She has worked to improve patient and staff foodservice since arriving at PHP, but Spicer’s most ambitious move came five years ago (when the hospital had about 230 beds) with the creation of the Five Star Dining room-service program. The name’s evocation of hotel dining was purposeful because that concept was precisely what Spicer had in mind.

Under the previous patient-foodservice program, called Timely Choice, a member of the food-and-nutrition service worked with each patient to select meals, which generally were served during regular mealtimes. Five Star Dining jettisoned the formality of traditional healthcare foodservice, giving patients greater freedom over what they eat and when, making their hospital stay that much less “institutional.”

Between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., patients can dial FOOD whenever they are hungry and order what they want (depending on physician-mandated restrictions) from a menu with more than three dozen choices. Each meal is prepared to order, plated on china and delivered within 45 minutes by employees—called ambassadors—in hotel-waitservice dress.

There are no rolling carts of indentically prepared meals in holding bins. And there is no menu cycle. “It’s not 'every fourth Tuesday is meatloaf day,’” Spicer says. “Gary is constantly surprising me with what he and the staff create for the menu.”

Recent breakfast choices included a Grilled Breakfast Sandwich with Canadian bacon, scrambled egg and Cheddar on Texas toast; among lunch offerings was a Reuben Panini (shaved corned beef, Swiss cheese, sauerkraut and horseradish on dark rye). “Chef Gary’s Recommendations” for dinner included Chipotle-Dusted Pork Tenderloin accompanied by butternut-squash chilaquiles finished with espresso cream.

Making Five Star Dining work required a 180-degree shift not only in operations but also, and of more importance, in mindset, Spicer says. Bringing in Vorstenbosch was the linchpin. A Dutch native with classical culinary training in Europe, Vorstenbosch previously worked the kitchens of high-end Star Canyon and The Green Room. But adding one experienced chef wouldn’t be enough to make the difference Spicer had in mind.

“When we transitioned, we knew we were about two years away from having a new kitchen,” she says. “So we didn’t want to make giant modifications immediately. But we have very supportive senior leadership who allowed us some capital for a few new pieces of equipment and to reshuffle existing equipment so it was in the right configuration.”

The mindset issue still had to be addressed, however. “We learned pretty quickly that cooks who only have cooked in bulk for years really couldn’t make that change to room-service dining,” says Spicer. “Now they were responsible for each individual plate rather than just taking a pan of meatloaf out of the oven and giving it to someone else to serve.”

Kitchen staff with restaurant or hotel experience were cycled in, and serving staff now all come from similar backgrounds.

PHP’s 16,000-square-foot kitchen is divided, with one side handling prepared-to-order room-service meals and the other side preparing meals for the hospital’s other foodservice venues, primarily the Atrium Café dining room for visitors and staff, and two physicians lounges. That allows the two kitchen crews to “stay out of each other’s way, because when it’s a busy time in room service, those folks have to hustle,” Spicer says.

The flexibility and quick pace of the foodservice operation are what make working at PHP enjoyable, Spicer and Vorstenbosch agree. “It’s not an environment where every day you’re going to go in and do the same things,” she says. “The menu’s constantly evolving; Gary is always looking to try new things.”

Vorstenbosch says that it took some time to learn to cook without using butter or cream, but that developing menus that have creative and culinary flair while also meeting nutritional guidelines is an enjoyable and rewarding challenge. Cooks are encouraged to collaborate on menu development. “They feel really good if [a dish is] something they’ve created and it sells well in the dining room or if patients say they love it.”

And although he admits to dreaming about the growing reputation of PHP’s dining room making the Atrium Café a dining destination for the general public, he, like Spicer, keeps patients top of mind. “Every day we should say OK, let’s cook something that makes each patient’s experience better,” he says. “That will never change. You can always do something better; you can learn from today and do better. I’m not done yet.”