Healthcare Hospitality Consulting

The management of a prestigious 800-bed hospital in a major U.S. city was dissatisfied with the foodservice operator serving their patients and the in-house retail cafés. The client was eager to have a completely new vendor installed in less than nine months, and a field of six operators were identified to potentially take over the foodservice. The challenge was to create a comprehensive Request for Proposal and vetting process that would avoid the mistakes of the last operator relationship, define the most critical deliverables, and guarantee success.

IHS worked with the hospital’s upper management and C-suite executives to develop a specifics-heavy RFP that would identify the best fit for the hospital. After managing the pre-qualification process, IHS brought in six candidate companies for two-hour “Visioning Sessions” that allowed the operators to present their value propositions and records of success. After careful deliberation the selection committee narrowed the field to three finalists. IHS then led the evaluations of proposals and coordinated a second round of reviews that included intensive presentations of operator capabilities and thorough proposal cross-examinations.

IHS and hospital leadership determined the best operator for the job, and IHS negotiated the contract to make sure that the commitment would match the proposal. Time was also short for managing the transition—which had to be seamless and accomplished on a single day. During the three months between selection and transition, IHS, the hospital management, and the new vendor met weekly to stay ahead of key milestones. The transition was a complete success, even incorporating new patient software and automated spoken menu ordering on day one. IHS also built in operator accountability to the program by scheduling full, semi-annual quality assurance assessments powered by the IHS CrossCheck tool.

Cleveland Clinic had an interesting predicament: Its food and hospitality needs had become too large for one provider to manage. On the advice of IHS, the Clinic’s administration decided to split the business across two providers. With a short timeline of 60 days, the Cleveland Clinic needed to transition from one to two national contractors without any disruption to service.

IHS steered Cleveland Clinic and two contractors to a solution and embraced its role as subject matter expert representing the Client stakeholders. First, IHS outlined transition activities and established clear rules of engagement for each operator based on portfolio and client needs. Then they defined roles for project completion with project managers from each entity and updated senior leadership throughout the transition with executive briefings and reports.

IHS guaranteed a smooth transition by setting clear expectations and defining specific responsibilities for each operator. The Cleveland Clinic experienced no service disruption, passed safety requirements handily, and increased retail revenues from day one. The Clinic also improved food quality, customer service, and overall nutrition value across the enterprise, based on Press Ganey quality assurance scores.