Nutrition Assistant; Dietary - Food and Nutrition

Nutrition Assistant (Dietary) – Food and Nutrition

Location: MMH-31 Union Street (10619), Hartford, CT – part of Greater Manchester Region. This role reports to the Clinical Nutrition Manager and is essential to patient diet service in a 249‑bed community hospital.

Position Summary: The Nutrition Assistant provides high‑quality customer service to inpatient patients, assists with menu selections, interprets diet orders, maintains Meditech entries, ensures compliance with JCAHO and state regulations, and trains new staff.

• Assists patients with menu selection daily, addressing special needs, cultural/religious preferences, and requested food items.
• Obtains and updates menus for new admissions promptly; circulates and colors menus to match prescribed diet orders.
• Maintains accurate, legible handwritten menus and ensures correct room numbers, patient names, and allergy indications.
• Ensures each breakfast, lunch, and dinner menu reflects the complete diet order from the computerized census sheet.
• Fills out all mandatory fields on the “Patient Profile” (kardex) sheet per patient and keeps data current.
• Reviews and updates menus before each meal, organizing hold trays and menus for NPO patients.
• Inputs all snack/PO supplement orders into Meditech and updates or deletes entries as diet status changes.
• Completes grill sheet, cold specials sheet, and add‑on sheet each day and records a daily meal census.
• Corrects and modifies inpatient menus to be fully compliant with physician orders and established guidelines; maintains a median audit score >90 %.
• Processes phone/computer orders for admissions, discharges, diet changes, or room transfers and updates all related forms in Meditech.
• Participates in customer‑service surveys and quality‑improvement initiatives, such as NPO tracking.
• Applies JCAHO standards and Connecticut State Department of Health regulations to all diet‑related processes.
• Attends monthly clinical in‑services and department meetings.

• Ability to read, write, speak, and comprehend English.
• Knowledge of nutritional structure and various client needs within that structure.
• Proficiency with the Meditech computerized system.
• Excellent communication skills.

• High school diploma or equivalent (GED).
• Preferred: experience working with Meditech.

• Seniority level:
  Entry level
• Employment type:
  
  Full‑time
• Job function:
  Health Care Provider (Hospital)