Dominican Hospital (a member of Dignity Health) is a 222-bed facility that offers a wide range of services to residents of California’s Central Coast. With 24/7 emergency care, comprehensive care in cardiac, orthopedics, oncology, women’s and children’s services, we continue to lead the region in medical innovation and excellence in healthcare.

Comprehensive Care
Dominican offers emergency services and is a Certified Stroke Center and Chest Pain Center. Dominican’s services include the only comprehensive Cancer Center in Santa Cruz County, a Total Joint Replacement program, and advanced neurological and endoscopic services. Dominican regularly receives ‘A’ grades for hospital safety from Leapfrog Group, and has received national recognition for superior patient safety, cardiac care, and stroke treatment from Healthgrades, a leading provider of comprehensive information about physicians and hospitals.
As Santa Cruz County’s heart attack (STEMI) receiving center, Dominican Hospital provides cutting edge cardiac care. The hospital’s heart attack treatment times consistently beat the national average, and the hospital offers two cardiac catheterization labs available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Groundbreaking cardiac procedures at Dominican include the Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR) procedure, which allows for heart valve replacement without opening a patient’s chest.
Dominican Hospital has forged significant partnerships with area hospitals to bring exceptional care to Santa Cruz County. The hospital offers a level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) through a partnership with Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford. Neurosurgery at Dominican is also offered through a partnership with Stanford Health Care.

One Community. One Mission. One California 

Job Summary:

Participates and supports all aspects of healthcare food service operations. Works with facility staff to provide optimal nutritional care and demonstrates excellent customer service to patients, guests and staff. Follows diet manual handbook and diet spreadsheets to ensure therapeutic meal compliance with prescribed diet order. 

Essential Key Job Responsibilities:

1. Prepares and serves food within guidelines of menu and dietary requirements using required kitchen utensils and equipment. Maintains knowledge of recipe ingredients to respond to food allergy questions or requests. 

2. Follows healthcare foodservice industry standards, regulations, guidelines and procedures including monitoring and maintaining food temperatures during cooking, holding, and storage processes. Avoids cross-contamination of foods and adheres to personal hygiene requirements. Maintains proper labeling of food products and ensures storage of food equipment, and machinery per regulations and facility guidelines. 

3. Follows organizational standards and guidelines for a high quality patient and customer experience. Ensures proper meal portioning and an aesthetically pleasing presentation. Provides service recovery efforts and escalates to leadership as needed. 

4. May be responsible for one or more of the following: 

• Following therapeutic diet modifications and guidelines including allergy restrictions for all patient meal trays, nourishment, snacks and supplements

• Printing, providing and following production tool and/or electronic meal tallies/differentials for food preparation

• Explaining basic therapeutic diet orders and menus and responding to questions from patients and family members. Escalating additional patient nutrition questions or needs to appropriate clinical support team members.

• Collecting patient food preferences and ensuring compliance with prescribed diet orders. Distributing food preferences to kitchen for menu planning in a timely manner.

• Operating electronic diet office software and tools following established procedures and protocols.

• Navigating electronic health records to access patient diet orders and nutritional reports.

REQUIRED:

• One (1) year foodservice experience required.
• High School Diploma, GED, or equivalent combination of education and experience.