Patient Dining Associate

Hartford Healthcare•New Britain, CT

About The Position

The Patient Dining Associate provides food service to patients on assigned hospital units. The role includes taking meal selections, assembling and delivering trays, collecting trays, stocking patient units, and fulfilling special food requests between meals. The associate maintains accurate, current patient information and works within prescribed diet orders, including restrictions for modified diets, allergies, and sensitivities. They offer appropriate menu alternatives that account for patients’ cultural, ethnic, and religious preferences, coordinate with Nursing to ensure diet prescriptions and food needs are accurate, and check on patients after meals to address additional needs. The associate may help the dietitian monitor patients who are NPO, on liquid diets, or have calorie counts ordered. They report patient-related concerns to appropriate personnel and participate in departmental meetings and staff development programs as appropriate.

Requirements

Must be able to read and speak English.
Ability to add, subtract, multiply, and divide using whole numbers, common fractions, and decimals; may need to compute ratios and percentages.
Possess the skills needed to operate the hospital’s admission, discharge, and transfer (ADT) system and other computer-based systems used to manage patient-care records.
Ability to deal with problems involving several concrete variables in standardized situations.
Ability to apply common-sense understanding to carry out written or oral instructions.

Nice To Haves

High school diploma or GED.
Two years of customer service experience.
Additional languages.

Responsibilities

Provide patient food service on assigned units, including menu selection, tray assembly and delivery, tray pickup, stocking units, and fulfilling special requests between meals.
Maintain accurate and current information for each patient on assigned units.
Take patient menu selections before meal service while following dietary restrictions and modified diet orders.
Offer menu alternatives allowed by the prescribed diet, taking allergies, sensitivities, and cultural, ethnic, and religious preferences into account.
Coordinate with Nursing to ensure patients’ diet prescriptions are accurate and food needs are met.
Round on patients after trays are passed to check on them and address additional needs.
Retrieve trays from patients after meals.
May assist the dietitian with monitoring patients who are NPO, on liquid diets, or have a calorie count ordered.
Communicate patient-related problems or concerns to appropriate personnel in a timely manner and according to departmental procedures.
Attend departmental meetings and staff development programs as appropriate.
Perform other related duties as required.