Head chef Andy Deutmeyer and Mercy Medical Center in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, are supporting local growers and improving patient satisfaction by cooking with local foods, according to The Gazette.
Mercy and Mr. Deutmeyer purchase local meats, dairy products and a wide-variety of produce to provide Mercy's staff and patients with better-tasting food that's never been frozen or canned.
Mr. Deutmeyer — the former head chef of a downtown Cedar Rapids restaurant lost to flooding in 2008 — said Mercy's shift to local foods started as an experiment. The hospital began participating in a small community-supported agriculture program that covered the costs of farming and farmer's salary in exchange for vegetables.
But the program didn't provide Mercy with enough local produce, so Mercy expanded the operation to include a network of farmers. The program has grown every year since. In 2011, Mercy purchased more than 17,800 pounds of local food. By 2015, that number jumped 46,500.
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Pam Oldham, director of Mercy's food and nutrition department who worked with Chef Deutmeyer to expand the local foods program at Mercy, told The Gazette, "It's the right thing to do for the community, and it also supports the mission of Mercy...we can keep dollars local and the produce tastes better. As long as we're able to do it, we'll do it."
"Ten years ago, what we do at Mercy would have been nearly impossible...there were not as many growers and they weren't growing on as large of scale," said Mr. Deutmeyer, who expects the program to continue to grow. "There's so much more out there that we can get our hands on," he told The Gazette.
Mercy Medical Center is one of just 13 hospitals to receive a Press Ganey patient satisfaction score above 90 percent for its food and nutrition services six years in a row.
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