Randy Williams, manager, Food Services, began his journey with UPMC Food and Nutrition three and a half years ago. Within his first week, he identified an opportunity in the kitchen that was close to his heart. “I messaged my manager after I was here for less than a week and said, ‘Is there anything we can about this food waste?’”
Randy’s plan took some time to come to fruition. “When I first messaged my manager, it was during the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it was a little more difficult to partner with food banks.”
In the interim, Randy got to know his team members and joined the Sustainability Committee at UPMC Mercy, under the direction of Mike Carlson, director, Environmental Services. Randy and the committee discovered ways to reduce waste across the board, including paper, plastic, and linen product reduction. After some time, Randy broached the topic of food waste again, and the ball began rolling.
“Through a lot of collaboration and conversation, we turned our sights on our patients,” Randy says.
The concept, while simple, was genius: send discharged patients and their caretakers (where applicable) home with meals.
The well-balanced meals are safely built from the meal service leftovers in environmentally friendly reusable containers and stored in the freezer. Every patient at UPMC Mercy is asked upon discharge if they would like to opt into the program.
“So many patients are discharged with a list of medications that need to be taken with food,” Randy notes, “and no one ever asked before: Do you have the ability to feed yourself?”
Food insecurity has long been linked to hospital readmission rates in adult patients as a contributing factor, and Randy was determined to lend a hand to bringing those numbers down.
The program, which launched on Dec. 4, 2023, offers patients various meal options upon discharge. If the patient alone has a need for meals, they are sent home with three balanced meals for three days. If it’s a patient and their caretaker, they’re each sent home with three balanced meals for two days.
In just nine months, 290 patients have taken advantage of this program and its benefits, adding up to more than 2,000 individual meals.
A Team Effort
Randy praises his director, Jennifer McKelvey, his teammates, and his service line partners for the role they play in making this program a success. “It’s been such an amazing collaboration between Food Services and Care Management.”
He credits both Lauren Beam, supervisor, Pharmacy, and Laura Merriman, manager, Clinical Care Coordination and Discharge, for helping to make the program process so smooth.
“Laura makes sure her team asks every patient if they want the benefit at discharge,” he explains. “And Lauren created a form that lives on Sharepoint that gets filled out anytime a patient does opt in.”
“Every time I see her name in my inbox, I know that another patient has accepted our benefit,” Randy adds gleefully.
In addition to offering this service to patients, Randy and his team donate the remaining meal service leftovers to 412 Food Rescue, something several other hospitals including UPMC Magee-Womens Hospital and UPMC Prebyterian Shadyside do as well. So far this year, Randy’s team has donated approximately 20,555 lbs. of food to 412.
These programs have allowed Randy’s team to eliminate over 90% of their perishable food waste. “We waste nothing here at UPMC Mercy,” Randy says.
Randy has answered the call to serve time and time again. Before beginning his journey with UPMC, Randy served in the military for 11 years. He then returned home to Pittsburgh and began stretching his culinary expertise in local restaurant kitchens around the city. Both experiences naturally offered him lots of perspective. When he reflects back on his childhood, he identifies that his own household faced food insecurity. “I tell everybody; my mother faced a lot of food insecurity to make sure her children didn’t.”
If you ask Randy, he’ll tell you that his mom is a superhero. But the truth is—he’s one too.
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