NYU Langone Health has overhauled its hospital food services, aiming to improve patient nutrition and experience as part of its broader commitment to high-quality care. The initiative, developed over the past decade, replaces outsourced food service contracts with an in-house culinary operation that serves more than 9,000 meals daily across all NYU Langone hospitals, including locations in Brooklyn and Long Island. In 2024 alone, the Manhattan hospital provided over 2 million meals.
“This vision of hospital food as an extension of caring for patients and families has been a decade in the making,” said Vicki Match Suna, AIA, executive vice president and vice dean for NYU Langone’s Real Estate Development and Facilities Department. “One year ago, we brought all of our operations in-house and we’re setting a new standard for how we can contribute to patients’ experience and recovery.”
The change began in 2014 when Dan Dilworth, senior director of food and nutrition services at NYU Langone Health, led a team that prioritized scratch cooking with high-quality ingredients. The team eliminated deep fryers from all facilities and focused on sustainable sourcing practices. Comfort foods remain available for pediatric patients.
Menus are now tailored to each patient’s medical needs as ordered by their physicians. For example, sodium is controlled for heart patients while carbohydrates are carefully calculated for those managing diabetes. According to Jessica Schreck, RD—director of food and nutrition at NYU Langone Hospital—Suffolk—a personalized approach can have significant impact: she described a case where staff created a custom smoothie for a patient struggling with swallowing difficulties, leading to improved nutritional intake.
“Patients can’t control their medical condition or the fact that they are in the hospital,” Dilworth said. “But they can control the meals they choose to eat. Food is something that’s very personal, and it affects the recovery process.”
Jeffrey Held, director of culinary operations at NYU Langone Health who previously worked in New York restaurants, noted his own family’s negative experiences with poor hospital meals elsewhere as motivation behind raising standards.
Held also highlighted sustainability efforts: “We started buying fresh herbs,” he said. “We found antibiotic-free poultry from farms within 150 miles of the city and fresh fish from our restaurant connections. We also started tasting food every day in the kitchen.” The system reduced plastic beverage packaging by 44 percent while cutting sugar content by 22 percent.
Patient satisfaction scores have increased since these changes were made; some even request recipes—such as coconut ginger red lentil soup—to try at home.
“We have barely scratched the surface of our plans, but it’s a glimpse of what’s possible,” Held said. “Our team of cooks find joy in doing their job well, and it shows.”
NYU Langone Health is recognized nationally for clinical quality outcomes across multiple specialties according to Vizient Inc., which ranked it first among academic medical centers nationwide for four consecutive years (https://www.vizientinc.com/newsroom/nyu-langone-health-ranked-no-1-in-nation-for-quality-and-safety-for-fourth-consecutive-year). U.S. News & World Report also ranks four clinical specialties at NYU Langone No. 1 nationally (https://health.usnews.com/best-hospitals/area/ny/nyu-langone-medical-center-6213210).
The health system operates seven inpatient hospitals—including Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital—and more than 320 outpatient sites throughout New York and Florida (https://nyulangone.org/locations). It also includes two tuition-free medical schools located in Manhattan and Long Island.
