Food-Service-Manual-for-Health-Care-Institutions

Food Service Manual for Health Care Institutions
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The management of the facility is obligated to set the standards and the code of ethics
when it comes to purchasing. Rigid policies and procedures must be developed and followed.
Management must be honest and demand honesty from its personnel. Management should
maintain open, honest communications with the employees and be available for advice by
involving everyone in the facility in discussing situations. The buyers should be thoroughly
investigated before being given the authority to spend the facility’s funds. Personnel should be
paid well enough to reduce the temptation to steal. An outsider should audit all financial
records, inventories, and specifications. Internal controls should be clearly defined. Accepting
bribes, kickbacks, and gifts in exchange for special ordering consideration, then, is not only
unethical but illegal. Money dilemmas will occur for which there is no one “right” or “wrong”
action. When this happens, a buyer’s personal ethical imperative and organizational policies
must provide a framework for action. For example, the following sensitive issues have occurred
in food service and interfered with fair and honest business practice:
• Gaining confidential information about a competitor from a supplier
• Accepting free trips, entertainment, and gifts beyond the dollar amount set by the
organization
• Purchasing from suppliers favored (requested) by the administration
• Disclosing one supplier’s quote to another supplier
• Using the organization’s economic clout to force a supplier to lower prices
The best way to avoid these situations is to adhere to defined policies and procedures for
conducting good and ethical business practices with vendors. The food service director may
consider adopting the National Association of Purchasing Management’s Principles and
Standards of Purchasing Practices as a guide for everyone involved in the procurement process
(available from the National Association of Purchasing Management, P.O. Box 22160, Tempe,
AZ 85285–2160).
Summary
Whether a health care facility hires a procurement specialist or charges the task of purchasing
to the food service director or a centralized purchasing department, procurement activities ultimately
have one objective. That objective is to ensure that everything needed to produce menu
items is in place, on time, and within budgetary boundaries.
To accomplish this massive objective, buyers must survey supplier sources, inquire about
prospective suppliers, negotiate for the best selection at the most favorable price, and monitor
selected suppliers to make sure they deliver what they promised when they promised it. Buyers
must do this while minimizing leftovers, plate waste, and rampant overstocking.
Certain trends affect these efforts significantly. For example, distributors no longer can rely
on the traditional “sales call.” Their service representatives—DSRs—now must promote valueadded
services to retain a buyer–client base they once could take for granted. Thus, technology
such as direct computer linkups between buyers and distributors’ product and service line can
expedite the buyer’s ordering process and inventory control methods. Such services provided
by distributors create distributor–buyer alliances whose common goal is customer retention.
Moreover, this interaction can be accomplished without either party leaving his or her office.
Food service buyers must practice ethical behavior at all times, following the policies of the
facility.