Attendees came out in masses for the first webinar installment in AHF’s 3-Part Webinar Series on Financial Planning. This webinar series is designed for frontline supervisors or anyone looking for a refresher on some of the need-to-know financial information to successfully run a healthcare foodservice department.
During this first webinar, Part 1: Finance 101, attendees were joined by Cara Marsh-Rhodes, Director of Financial Planning & Analysis and Thom Pastor, Food Services Manager, both from St. Charles Healthcare System. Bruce Thomas, who formerly served as VP of Hospitality Services at Geisinger Health before retiring served as the moderator.
Cara covered some of the basics of financial literacy and how financial management is one of the four core pillars of a leader’s role, being just as important as people, customers, and quality/safety. She discussed how financials are a way to tell your story to administrators and share your successes and challenges. Digging into some of the core concepts, she reviewed definitions such as operating and capital expenditures, net assets, and the elements of department financials like units of service, revenue, and expenses.
To provide a bit of a real-world perspective Cara and Thom then walked through some of his department’s actual finances and the attendees were able to hear examples of some of the questions and answers of how Thom relays his department’s finances to his system’s finance team and administrators. They remarked on how important and beneficial it is for leaders of a foodservice department to have a positive working relationship with the finance department and how others in the industry can work to build a similar relationship in their facilities.
If you missed yesterday’s webinar, AHF members can now watch the on-demand recording of the webinar on AHF’s Online Learning Center. Be sure to make plans to attend Part 2: Understanding Labor Productivity in March and Part 3: Foodservice Finance Management Strategies in April.
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