My Kai

Congratulations to the Nutrition and Food team for their successful implementation of the new electronic platform My Kai that provides personalised nutrition care and improved patient safety. I hear it went seamlessly live on 22 October with all patients receiving their meals on time.

My Kai automatically picks up the diet requirements entered into the Patient Flow Management system (PFM), so a patient’s menu choices, meals and beverages are customised to their individual dietary needs and clinical care while they are in hospital. In the past patients selected meal items not knowing whether they were suitable for them or not.

We have an excellent Nutrition and Food service and they have invested a substantial amount of work into My Kai over the last year to replace and streamline a number of outdated systems. I couldn’t agree more with the My Kai tagline, ‘food is medicine’, as it does play a part in each patients care plan.

Did you know?

Over 2400 patient meals are prepared each day at Waikato Hospital

What’s new with My Kai:

• Patients can trust that menu choices offered for them are already suitable for the diet code(s) that clinical staff enter for them into PFM

• In some wards, Nutrition and Food staff are taking the patients meal selection at the bedside directly onto an electronic device without the need for paper menus

• Ability to automatically calculate nutrients based on meal selection

• Nutrition information and diet codes stay with the patient wherever they are within the hospital. Clinical staff can enter and make changes to a diet code directly into PFM without needing to make a phone call

• No more faxing of menu

• Ability to capture and trend information needed for menu planning, ordering and production that will help reduce things like food waste and better plan nutritional needs

My Kai will also enable more patient centred care in the future such as options for patients to order their meals online themselves.