Choosing Dinex Servingware for Healthcare Facilities
Dinex produces a line of servingware specifically designed to bring the comfort of a warm meal to the discomfort of a hospital stay. With acrylic servingware, insulated Dinex bowls and cups, and a variety of serving trays, Dinex provides institutions with the necessary tools to keep patients well-fed and happy. Attractive designs and warm colors improve the ambience of a meal while helping it maintain the proper temperature. Improve patient satisfaction scores and patient outcomes through increased meal adherence with Dinex's selection of trays, dinnerware, and rethermalization pieces.
Improving Patient Outcomes
The ultimate goal of healthcare foodservice is improved patient health. Serving tasty, appetizing meals are a key means to that end. In hospitals and long-term care facilities, the atmosphere and events surrounding a stay often dampen patient appetites, and patients that don't eat well can't heal as quickly or engage as fully in physical therapy. Many medications suppress appetite, compounding the problems faced in keeping patients well-fed.
Healthcare foodservice programs must overcome these challenges and contribute as best as possible to positive patient outcomes. The majority of this work is done by the kitchen staff, preparing and serving quality meals, but presentation is a key aspect of any meal experience. Dinex servingware approaches healthcare foodservice from both directions: presentation and food quality. Dinex is helping hospitals switch over to more efficient and appealing foodservice models and offers a large catalog of dinnerware products produced for that purpose.
Aesthetic Features
Aesthetics are unnecessary in a hospital – at least, that was the conventional wisdom when it came to plates, cups, and trays for serving hospital food. However, taking steps beyond absolute necessity shows your patients that you value them as more than boxes that need to be checked. Attractive Dinex dinnerware might surprise your patients with a splash of color, a delicately articulated swirl, and a consistent decorative feel that promises a meal instead of just food.
Dinex Trays
Dinex offers serving trays in an assortment of rich colors, such as cranberry, latte, and midnight blue. These and other options enable operators to choose a set of trays that matches or complements the existing décor in their facility. Small touches like these can convey to a patient that the establishment is concerned with more than the bottom line – that, like a restaurant or hotel, management is focused on more than simply meeting the base requirements and that patient comfort matters. Dinex trays have different features depending on price point and purchaser preference, including molded-in non-skid surfaces, dishwasher-safe products, and stain resistance to go along with the aesthetic improvement.
Dinex Dinnerware Styles
Busy healthcare establishments don't have copious amounts of excess time, so picking out dinnerware that matches is not always a top priority. Luckily, Dinex has created several product lines for busy healthcare professionals to choose from, helping large operations keep a clean, consistent look throughout its servingware. Whether you choose the Turnberry, Heritage, or Sculpture designs, having a premade look saves you time and hassle while ensuring your patients' meals are served on attractive and functional dinnerware.
Functional Features
Once you've chosen the styles and colors that fit your establishment, it's time to get down to the functional side. Dinex makes several lines of traytop servingware with different visual properties, but they also come with varying features. Whether you need insulated serving bowls, trays, or rethermalization products, Dinex and KaTom have you covered.
Insulated vs. Non-insulated
Even the finest meals turns inedible if the hot food gets cold and the cold food gets warm. In a busy healthcare environment, ensuring your patients receive their food at the appropriate temperature is a challenge. With transit time between the kitchen and the room, multiple patients being served from the same cart, and inevitable delays that come with any healthcare environment, operators cannot get every meal to every patient quickly. Insulated servingware extends the timeframe operators have to get food to patients by locking heat in hot dishes and keeping heat out of cold dishes. Insulated dinnerware also serves as a buffer between patients and hot food, enabling the patient to handle a cup of tea or hot soup without fear of being scalded.
Dishwasher Safe
Most of Dinex's products are dishwasher safe, which is an enormous timesaver when you consider the quantity of dishes that need to be washed in a typical healthcare kitchen setting. Dinex even offers reusable lids that are dishwasher safe. Whichever style you prefer, consider purchasing dishwasher-safe Dinex servingware to make your operation's washing and sanitizing processes less labor intensive.
Rethermalization Servingware
For establishments that use rethermalization techniques to prepare meals (a method that is frequently referred to as cook-chill), Dinex offers the Tropez line of servingware, which is designed to stand up against the high heat necessary for rethermalization. Because Tropez is designed to be used in retherm, the products are not insulated – instead, they need to be able to cool down to a serving temperature after being rethermalized. Tropez servingware is dishwasher safe, which provides a quick turnaround to get your servingware back on the line.
Lids
Another step in promoting patient safety, lids for all of Dinex's servingware enable patients with unsteady hands to handle liquids without injuring themselves. Lids also help prevent spills in general, which keeps food and drink from being wasted. Disposable lids are easy to use and clean, as you can just toss them in the garbage or recycling, but Dinex also offers reusable lids for environmentally conscious operators. Before purchasing, ensure that you are getting the lids that match the style of servingware you're using, as the lids are designed to fit specific Dinex bowls and cups.
Dinex at a Glance
Dinex has built its brand around providing attractive, functional equipment and servingware for healthcare settings, offering several lines of servingware designed to improve the aesthetics of your institution's meal service. More attractive dinnerware leads to a more attractive meal, which helps improve patient appetites. Better appetites mean better meal compliance, and better meal compliance can lead to better patient outcomes. Put your establishment on the right path with elegant, functional servingware options from Dinex.
