Fairfield Park Article

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A NEW WAY TO BREAK BREAD AND SAVE DOUGH

Shelley Marsh NM Director of Nutrition Services Fairfeld Park Long Term Care

Shelley graduated from Centralia College’s Foodservice Management Program in 1989 and later earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Western Ontario.

With 32 years of experience, she’s a longstanding CSNM member, holding various roles in acute and long-term care food service management. Shelley’s perspective shifted signifcantly after her degree, leading to membership in the OSNAC/FNAT group. She advocates for changes to Ministry of Long Term Care regulations and has implemented signifcant menu changes as Director of Food and Nutrition Services at Fairfeld Park.

Amanda Rolph RD Corporate Dietitian VIDA Dietetics

Amanda is a Registered Dietitian with over 18 years of long-term experience. Since 2015, she has been with VIDA Dietetics serving as the Corporate Dietitian.

Amanda is the clinical expert and supports VIDA customers with foodservice management system implementation. She advocates for high-quality, nutrient-dense menus to support health and quality of life outcomes for residents.

Fairfeld Park Long Term Care, a 103 bed home, is one of three LaPointe-Fisher Nursing Homes. Located in the charming river town of Wallaceburg, Ontario, Fairfeld Park is dedicated to continuously assessing and improving their quality of service. They seek opportunities to be innovative, creative, and implement or infuence best practice models of care.

Shelley Marsh, Director of Nutrition Services: We are committed to meeting the needs and desires of our residents, aligning with our core value of making Fairfeld Park truly feel like the residents’ home. Our goal was to go beyond ofering a monthly Resident Choice special by collaborating with residents during monthly food council meetings to co-create a menu featuring their favourite meals.

Our residents expressed a desire for more homemade soups, casseroles, and baked goods. Prioritizing these requests, we focused on reducing sodium and increasing fber, aligning our shared goals with each discussion.

With the introduction of the Fixing Long Term Care Act and changes to menu planning regulations changes that came into efect July 11, 2022, we saw an opportunity to implement a menu style change. This change would help us manage rising food

costs, production limitations, increased resident needs, supplement costs, and other barriers to meeting resident expectations. We began discussing this menu change in June 2023 and enlisted the help of the VIDA Dietetics team to turn our vision into reality. With their support, we ensured our menu met and exceeded Dietary Reference Intake Values and successfully executed our menu on Synergy TechSuite. The new Fall/Winter menu was implemented in November 2023.

To start, we created a list of residents’ favourite foods, using historical data to select items that consistently ranked in the top 75% for acceptance. Recognizing that many favourites were higher in cost and required more production time, we also needed quick-to- prepare, afordable, and well received Always-Available options.

We decided to ofer diferent Always-Available items at lunch and supper, changing them weekly. For example, Week 1 features a ham salad sandwich and coleslaw for lunch, both of which are easy to prepare and cross three textures. This approach minimizes production prep time, allowing more focus on preparing homemade soups, casseroles and desserts. This efciency enables us to invest more time and resources into preparing main favourites, such as a grilled Reuben. After a unanimous vote to continue with a One- Choice, Always-Available menu, Linda (in blue), and Dinie are hard at work helping plan the Spring Summer menu.

Our Week 1 Always-Available options supper menu features chicken breast and mashed potato with gravy. With mashed potato crossing four textures, we always have a non-mashed potato option alongside a homemade main dish that would typically be too costly. For example, we might serve pork drummies with an applesauce garnish, a baked potato with sour cream, buttered peas, and caulifower with cheese sauce.

We provide two 3 oz servings of vegetables with every supper plate, regardless of which menu choice is selected. This ensures a varied and appealing meal each night. Our menu delivers 28-29 grams of fber daily, eliminating the need to ofer bread at all meals to meet the daily fber requirements.

Our dietary team has fully embraced the One-Choice Menu, allowing them more time to prepare homemade recipes and produce highquality dishes they are proud to serve. We review our menu at monthly Food Council Meetings and in March 2024, residents unanimously voted to continue the One-Choice with an Always-Available option. We are currently planning our Spring/ Summer menu cycle, actively involving residents in the process.

This One-Choice, Always-Available menu is a work in progress. We continue to post both choices on the Week at a Glance (WAAG) menu and ofer a visual choice at point of service. The predictability of the always-available options reduces waste and saves money, allowing us to invest more in high-quality ingredients.

We are very proud of this menu and look forward to our next Resident/Family Survey results and feedback from Ministry reviews. We believe we have a solid base for our One- Choice, Always-Available menu, with plenty of room for growth and improvement to adapt to our residents’ ever-changing needs and requests.

“I’m proud to serve the food we prepare, it’s a great menu”.

Monique

The always available option makes the food counts more predictable, there is a lot less waste”.

Tim

“The always available option is an easy prep item. This allows us more time to focus on the main and put out more home cooked meals”. Kelly