Rural Oregon Hospitals Have Mixes Reaction To New Dietary Guidelines

New requirements laid out by the Department of Health and Human Services to limit processed foods in hospitals are getting mixed responses from hospitals in rural Oregon.  The stated goal of the new guidelines is to fight long-term illness by treating healthy food as part of medical care, that includes eliminating sugary drinks, replacing refined grains with whole grains, and emphasizing higher vegetable intake.

Virginia Williams with Curry Health Network in Gold Beach says being a small hospital is to their advantage when it comes to serving healthy food.

"Most of our food is home-cooked in our kitchen," Williams said.  "We really use very little processed foods. I would say we meet a lot of what their requirements are. We really do have very, very good food and it is known in our community."

Brock Slabach with the National Rural Health Association says he's not worried about the new guidelines.  He explained hospitals have long-standing regulations for their food, and he doesn't expect the changes will need to be very dramatic at most rural hospitals.  He added while there could be an increase in price, that's not at the top of his list of concerns.

"We just kind of took it in stride," Slabach said.  "We have so many different issues in this country for health care that to focus on this one, I thought was kind of fascinating."

He added that the new guidelines still need to be incorporated into each state’s operations manual, then hospitals will be surveyed to make sure they're in compliance.  This gives hospitals time to make the changes.

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