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HANCOCK - Hospital food has long been a standardized blah: Cooked in batches, delivered to every room at the same time.

But at Portage Health, patients are getting something new: A wider varieties of foods, brought to them when they want it.

"You think of hospital food - 'Do I have to eat it?'" said Paul Skinner, Portage's director of nutrition services. "We're trying to change that perception of hospital food, where it's appealing, looks good, and it tastes fantastic."

The hospital instituted its new room service dining program on Sept. 16.

The program had been discussed at Portage since 2004, but really kicked into gear a few months ago, Skinner said.

There's a wide range of food combinations available. For example: a ham and cheese omelet with two bacon strips, a low-fat homemade blueberry muffin and orange juice for breakfast; baked chicken breast with green beans, homestyle mashed potatoes and gravy, pudding and milk for lunch; and a garden veggie burger, rice pilaf, iced tea and orange sherbet for dinner.

"The new system allows patients to order when they're hungry, and order what they want, if it's in their diet parameters," Skinner said.

Room service dining is available seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Forty percent of hospitals in the U.S. have moved to room service dining, including three others in the Upper Peninsula.

Portage Health worked with Ron Sabatini, a consultant with San Diego-based Don Miller & Associates and a certified executive chef, to prepare for the change.

"You literally go from Sunday night at 5 the old way to Monday morning the new way, and it has to be a smooth transition," Skinner said.

In building the menu, Skinner and the consultants found there were some core dishes, such as the Caesar salad or the chef's salad, that patients expected to be on the menu. But it's also been customized to fit the area.

"We have baked lake trout, because that's in the U.P.," Skinner said.

Skinner said they prepare about 20 breakfasts, lunches and dinner per day.

It's been popular so far, he said. Patient orders doubled, while guest orders tripled.

One of Skinner's favorite features of the new menu is the nutritional information. Heart-healthy dishes, such as two low-cholesterol scrambled eggs or yogurt parfait, are marked with a small heart icon to the right of the dish's name. Items with carbohydrates show the number of carbohydrate servings, from 1 (applesauce) to 4 (bagel).

"It teaches you if you want a cookie, that's fine, but you may be giving something up in order to have that cookie," he said.

The change is actually saving Portage money, Skinner said, since the abandonment of the one-meal-fits-all philosophy means patients aren't saddled with dishes they can't stand.

"We only cook the food the patient wants to eat," he said. "The plates that are coming back are clean."

Garrett Neese can be reached at gneese@mininggazette.com.