Hospital kitchen inspections in Philadelphia region yield a range of results

Philadelphia hospital kitchens are far more likely than food establishments as a whole to be out of compliance with food-safety regulations, averaging six violations apiece in their most recent quarterly inspections by the city health department.

The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, routinely named among the nation's best medical centers, was cited 14 times. The largely organic kitchen at Cancer Treatment Centers of America's Eastern Regional Medical Center in the Northeast had eight violations.

And in New Jersey, Virtua Memorial Hospital in Mount Holly was rated "conditional satisfactory" after inspections in November and last month found several violations. "Many live German cockroaches observed on or at base of wall in dish-washing room, dead roaches observed under shelving in paper storage, next to ice machine, and behind refrigerator in vegetable prep area," a Burlington County health department inspector wrote June 28.

All three hospitals said the violations had been quickly corrected.

Food generally isn't considered when patients choose a hospital. Yet a review of inspection reports from around the region found scores of violations, as well as wide variations in what was cited from county to county. Some evidence suggests that the scrutiny is more rigorous in the city.

Inspections are a far-from-perfect measure of risk: Inspectors found nothing amiss before or after an outbreak sickened 54 people and killed three patients at a Louisiana state hospital in May. And experts say most hospital kitchens go overboard with food safety, cooking so thoroughly to kill microbes that flavors may be lost.

They know that a slipup could be devastating.

"Anybody who has a compromised immune system is going to be more susceptible to food-borne illness. And hospitals are full of people with compromised immune systems," said Sheri Morris, food program manager at the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, which regulates restaurants and stores but not hospitals.

There are an estimated 76 million cases of food-borne illness in the United States each year and 5,000 deaths, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A CDC database shows a tiny portion of them originating in hospitals and even fewer affecting patients.