Last updated on June 15th, 2023
It’s time for another installment of our F-tag food safety series. This week we’ll be discussing tag F-805. This tag is about serving meals that meet residents’ needs according to their assessed ability to chew and swallow foods. More specifically, this tag focuses on ensuring residents receive food that is safe for them to eat.
The Purpose of F-805
The exact wording of F-805 is “Each resident receives, and the facility provides food prepared in a form designed to meet individual needs.”
While some residents may not have difficulty eating the typical meals you serve, others with various conditions could have issues chewing or swallowing certain foods. Your dining team needs to ensure that those residents have healthy, delicious meals available they can eat safely while reducing the risk of choking or aspiration.
Special Diets for Your Residents
Residents may require texture modification for a variety of reasons; dental issues, memory loss, stroke, and ear, nose and throat cancers can all lead to chewing and swallowing challenges.
Modified-texture diets are used when an individual suffers from dysphagia, which is when someone has difficulty chewing or swallowing. Dysphagia occurs in one half or more of people in residential aged care facilities and those living with dementia, so your dining team must know how to properly prepare modified-texture meals. Studies have found that a modified-texture diet with fortified foods improves dietary intake, nutritional status, and quality of life for elderly patients with dysphagia.
There are many types of modified-texture diets. Texture modification ranges from softening and chopping into bite-sized pieces and progresses towards a full puree. Texture modification can be done to almost any food as long as the person preparing the food knows how to soften, enhance flavor, and create consistent textures using a variety of juices, broths, gravies, and thickening agents added to the modified food.
The IDDSI (International Dysphagia Diet Standardization Initiative) created a framework to develop a “new global standardized terminology and definitions to describe texture modified foods and thickened liquids used for individuals with dysphagia of all ages, in all care settings, and all cultures.” The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics has removed all other texture modified diets from it’s Nutrition Care Manual in favor of the IDDSI texture standards, so IDDSI should be referenced when training new staff.
Modified foods can look appealing and they should still taste great. Use spices, a variety of colors, and different shapes and piping techniques to make plates more appealing. Your food surveyor and residents will notice this extra effort.
Another type of diet that is recommended for residents with conditions like dementia is a finger food diet. Many dementia patients face mealtime challenges, like getting food, being distracted, having trouble using utensils, refusing to sit, and refusing food. Finger foods that don’t require a fork and knife may encourage residents with dementia to eat more often.
While it’s up to the interdisciplinary care team to determine if a texture modification is necessary for a resident, your dining services team is responsible for producing that texture consistently and safely.
What Are Food Inspectors Looking For?
When food surveyors evaluate your compliance with the F-805 tag, they’re going to determine if:
- Meals and food are prepared and appropriate to meet resident’s needs and according to their assessment and care plan.
- Any residents are having difficulty chewing or swallowing their food.
- Food is cut, chopped, ground, or pureed for individual resident’s needs.
Your team should be comfortable with a variety of diets to serve all residents properly. If modified-texture or finger foods are a regular part of meals in your community make sure all staff are trained on the correct way to prepare these diets.
How to Comply with F-805
Meeting your residents’ changing needs as your community grows will take a lot of effort from your entire dining team, medical staff, and residents. Your residents’ doctors should be in close communication with your dining team to ensure that everyone is aware of any diet changes or recommendations. You should also be chatting regularly with residents (and even their loved ones) to determine if they like the food you serve, what they want to see more of, and what they have difficulty eating.
A good food service management company can help you ensure you’re meeting residents’ needs with customized programs. For example, Culinary Services Group offers premium programs to help residents with limitations dine independently and enjoy mealtime.
Our Appeal Program focuses on artfully shaping and presenting puréed foods into something more familiar and comforting. This helps residents better recognize what they’re eating and enjoy their favorite meals again. We provide meal options for your residents at all levels of the IDDSI spectrum of modified eating.
The Empower Program is designed to help residents with dementia eat independently by offering various freshly prepared finger foods. This premium program considers an individual resident’s prescribed therapeutic diet, food preferences, and other nutritional concerns. Our Registered Dietitians work closely with your community’s Speech-Language Pathologist and healthcare team to determine if the Empower Program is an appropriate strategy for individual residents. Then, we give your facility a full spectrum of resources to help you serve a variety of finger food menu items.
We’ll work with your dining team and residents to create easy-to-eat, delicious menus together and ensure you’re passing F-805 food safety inspections. We can’t deliver on our promise of delicious, healthy food if your kitchen doesn’t pass state health inspections first.
Suppose you sign a contract with us and receive a moderate to serious violation that requires another inspection. In that case, we’ll forgo our management fees until the problem is resolved and your facility passes inspection.
If you’d like to learn more about how we can help your dining team stay compliant with the F-805 tag, contact us here.
