When St. Tammany Parish Hospital opened its doors on Dec. 1, 1954, it had just 30 beds, which at first blush doesn’t sound like that many.
But look at it from the point of view of the hospital’s kitchen staff. Thirty patients being served three meals a day means 90 meals to prepare. That’s 90 entrees, at least double that many sides, plus a whoooole lot of Jell-O every single day of every single week.
Then, in 1958, the hospital christened its first expansion – followed by another and another and another – all of which boosted both the bed count and the number of meals required to feed the occupants of those beds.
It would soon become clear that keeping track of all those fruit cups and bowls of soup would require more than mere pencil and paper.
Which brings us to today’s installment in our 70-part series chronicling the history of St. Tammany Health System by highlighting artifacts from its past, this time in recognition of March as National Nutrition Month.
Installment No. 31: Tally ho!
Today’s artifact: A vintage tally machine used by the hospital’s Dietary Department – now known as Food and Nutrition Services – to record patients’ meal orders.
Why it significant: A patient’s gotta eat. And given how people in Southern Louisiana relish mealtime, it’s particularly important here to get it right.
So, as St. Tammany Parish Hospital grew – and, more to the point, as its bed count grew – the Dietary team had to get creative to keep track of how many of each dish to prepare for patients at breakfast, at lunch and again at dinner.
Enter the Multi-Counter tally machine, a mechanical device resembling a cross between a typewriter and a cash register – and functioning like an umpire’s ball-and-pitch counter on steroids.
Manufactured by the Multi-Counter company of North Branford, Connecticut, the version of the expandable contraption used by the hospital contained 36 keys, each representing one of the dishes available to patients that day.
After nurses in each part of the hospital wrote down the meal choices of the patients in their charge, their resulting lists would be sent down to the kitchen, where they were collected and then entered into the tally machine. The results would let the hospital’s kitchen staff know exactly how many servings of each dish to prepare.
It’s unclear exactly when the machine was put into service, although STHS Food Services Secretary Barbara Jenkins Schwartz – currently one of the hospital’s longest-tenured employees – said it was being used when she started working at the hospital 40 years ago, in 1984, but was retired not long after.
Since then, they’ve been using fancy-dancy computers to do their tallying for them, but, in addition to being a cool bit of old-school machinery, that old tally machine – which still works, by the way – is a reminder that innovation at St. Tammany Parish Hospital has never been restricted to its clinical spaces.
Rather, as one of the five stated organizational values at St. Tammany Health System, innovation is demonstrated throughout the health system to ensure efficient, compassionate service for every patient, every touch, every time.
Indeed, today’s STHS Food and Nutrition Services team is innovating again. As part of a major overhaul of the hospital’s kitchen and cafeteria, it is preparing this year to roll out a number of new technologies to keep patients and colleagues fed. That will include an internet-based ordering system that will let them place an order ahead of time from their mobile devices.
Will there be other noteworthy kitchen innovations in the future?
You can count on it – and we have a tally machine if you need help doing it.
Do you have a St. Tammany Parish Hospital story or item to share? We’d love to hear about it! Email us at CommDept@stph.org.
Next week – Installment No. 32: ‘Our heart and soul’
Last week – Installment No. 30: ‘Spoke only a little and smiled a lot’