LEARNING OUTCOME: To determine the effect of a breakfast service from a cart on pediatric patients calorie and protein intake and satisfaction.

On the Pediatric Unit at Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center (RPSLMC) an alternative meal service, a breakfast food cart, was initiated. The breakfast cart concept provided the children and parents with tantalizing, nutritious, and children friendly breakfast items to spark the childrens’ appetite (increasing calorie and protein intake), permitted parents to select breakfast with their children, and provided an area for children and parents to eat together. The staff at RPSLMC hypothesized that this concept would enhance the childrens’ consumption and patient satisfaction.

For nine days pre/post implementation of the breakfast cart, breakfast menus were collected from toddler-adolescent patients, and analyzed for calories and protein utilizing CBORD (CBORD, INC., Ithaca, NY). Patient satisfaction surveys were distributed. Nutrition analysis of pre-implementation menus (n=78) revealed a protein intake of x̄: 5.9 grams (Range: 1.6-9.9 grams) and calories x̄: 187 calories (Range: 50-300 calories) compared to protein intake x̄: 9.98 grams (Range: 0-29.1 grams) and calories x̄: 466 (Range: 42-925 calories) for post breakfast cart implementation for the breakfast meal (n=59). Our post breakfast implementation patient satisfaction surveys tended to increase in all dimensions including: the taste, variety, amount and temperature of food, time of breakfast service, courtesy of servers and patients/parents overall expectations. A significant increase in patient satisfaction survey results was noted for time of breakfast service U=72.0, p=0.003 and temperature of the food U=61.0 p=0.0008. A positive trend in our patient satisfaction surveys and patient intake have followed the initiation of our pediatric breakfast cart.