Foodie culture—or the reason your social media feeds are flooded with pictures of over-the-top entrées—hasn’t just hit restaurants, blogs, and college campuses; it’s also arrived in hospitals. From made-to-order pasta stations to elevated menu offerings, health systems are rethinking the traditional cafeteria model.
Among those leading the charge to redefine hospital dining is Lisa Shoopman, Baptist Health System’s associate VP for food and nutrition services.
For more than two decades, she’s helped hospitals transform how they feed patients, staff, and visitors—doing everything from updating menu options and cafeteria fixtures to improving the systems used to order, track, and serve patient meals.
Shoopman—a registered and licensed dietitian nutritionist who got her start working in a hospital kitchen—said she’s always been passionate about food service and improving processes for patients and staff alike.
“We want to make sure that we’re creating the environment for our employees in our cafeterias, where it’s relaxing for them,” she told Healthcare Brew, noting that’s become especially important given the stress healthcare workers have faced following the Covid-19 pandemic.
And her Kentucky-based system is not alone.
Shoopman, who oversees food service and clinical nutrition across eight hospitals, said a growing number of hospital C-suite executives are “starting to see the need to have” one person in charge of food-related operations. She’s even been asked to share her story and experience with executives at other health facilities who are looking to create similar positions.
“There is great interest in [food service] nationwide now,” Shoopman said, adding that it can be “very dynamic within a healthcare system” since it touches every person.
“It just takes that passionate food leader to invest in the time that it takes to know your operation and be able to tell your story […] to the executives. Food is not their priority, and it shouldn’t be,” she said. “[The] job is to be able to tell the story of the current state of food service, and then network with your peers and identify what you’d like to do—and then start having the conversations and figure out a way to make it happen.”
Since being promoted to head of food and nutrition services in 2020 from her previous role as hospitality services director at Baptist Health Floyd, Shoopman has worked to streamline operations and ensure all eight hospitals are serving food that appeals to patients.
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Under her direction, Baptist rolled out a new unified menu that offers “restaurant-quality” meals that range from comfort food staples like meatloaf to plant-based options such as Beyond burgers. (Shoopman’s favorite new menu item is the white bean ratatouille.)
The health system also adopted new technology that allows some patients to order meals to their rooms via smartphones and tablets. Similar to hotel room service, the option is slowly being rolled out at some Baptist facilities.
Still, Shoopman said, it hasn’t been easy to overhaul Baptist’s dining programs due to hospital budget constraints—particularly as inpatient volumes continue to decline in hospitals following the pandemic.
“Capital dollars are so tight with health systems: The No. 1 priority is the patients and equipment needed for patient care and technology,” she said. “Food service always kind of has to wait for those dollars.”
Those funding challenges have forced Baptist—and Shoopman, who is always looking to stay “ahead of the curve and innovative”—to get creative.
The health system recently partnered with Ohio-based Rooted Grounds Coffee Company to develop and sell Baptist-branded dark roast coffee at campus eateries and retail locations, Shoopman said. Meanwhile, the system fundraised $1+ million in 2013 to open a revamped Panera Bread-style cafeteria at Baptist Floyd—the hospital where Shoopman worked as director of food and nutrition services from 2007 to 2014 before becoming director of hospitality services.
In addition to honing her creativity, Shoopman said she’s learned that she doesn’t have to be an expert in every part of food service operations. She instead relies on a team that includes an executive chef, culinary experts, and clinical dietitians.
“As long as I’m providing the tools that my team needs, in a safe environment, and collaborating, I don’t necessarily have to be the one that has all the answers,” she said. “Every meeting I have with my food service director team, I say, ‘We’re on a journey—we’re not going to get there in a day.’ That’s also something I’ve learned in my career: It is a marathon. It’s not a sprint.”