Hospital food is notoriously known for being basic, bland, and usually brown—whether it’s served in patient rooms or cafeterias. But that’s starting to change.

With outpatient procedures increasingly driving health system revenues, more hospital executives are revamping their food service offerings and management systems as they look to improve the patient experience—and woo people away from competitors—all while bolstering their own coffers.

“The C-suite [executives] know that patients have choice in what healthcare system they’re going to choose,” Lisa Shoopman, associate VP for food and nutrition at Kentucky-based Baptist Health, told Healthcare Brew. “They’re seeing more of the importance of what food service does bring to the table. Then, as dollars are getting tighter in healthcare, the C-suite is asking us to get creative and look for different solutions.”

The US healthcare food services market is expected to see sustained growth in the coming decade. A 2022 MarketsandMarkets report estimated the market could be worth $22.8 billion by 2026—a significant increase from $13.2 billion in 2021—driven, in part, by increased focus on improving the patient experience and custom food options. Meanwhile, market research firm Fact.MR estimated that the hospital food services market would hit $39.7 billion in fiscal year 2023, and could potentially reach $81.9 billion come 2033.

Keep reading here.—SY

Do you work in healthcare or have information about the industry that we should know? Email Shannon at [email protected]. For confidential conversations, ask Shannon for her number on Signal.

From HAL to Skynet, AI gets a bad rap. With its fast rise, buzzy headlines, and seemingly limitless potential, it’s hard to know if AI will help us or upend us. A pressing question on many employees’ minds: Will AI take my job?

MIT researchers offer a picture of the future of AI in the workplace. Read Tech Brew’s explanation of what artificial intelligence is capable of, what its probable use cases are, and the implications for your job. Hint: Predictions might be more complex and hopeful than you might expect. Read or listen here.

When it comes to cereal, more people probably prefer brand-name boxes over their generic cousins. But when it comes to the medicine cabinet, generic drugs save consumers a lot of cash.

Generic drugs are functionally the same as brand-name drugs, but they’re cheaper to make and therefore cost consumers less. Per the FDA, generics drive overall drug costs down, making medicines more accessible to people who need them, and easier for payers to cover.

But, there are several factors that make it hard for generic drugs to get approval, and one in particular plays a big role in delaying generics from hitting the market, according to researchers from the Brookings Schaeffer Initiative on Health Policy (Brookings Schaeffer Initiative). That factor is citizen petitions.

A lack of generic competition, due to the delays caused by citizen petitions, has major economic consequences. A 2020 study from the University of California San Francisco estimated that the “cost to society” of what the researchers described as four “baseless” citizen petitions delaying generic competition totaled $1.9 billion, with $782 million falling on government payers during two one-year periods (2008 and 2012).

What’s a citizen petition? Keep reading here.—MA

Do you work in healthcare or have information about the industry that we should know? Email Maia at [email protected]. For confidential conversations, ask Maia for her number on Signal.

Medical students and residents may be just as burnt out as their senior colleagues, and the perceived stigma around healthcare professionals seeking mental health care may prevent some from getting the help they need, a new survey suggests.

A survey from the nonprofit Physicians Foundation of more than 2,100 US medical students, residents, and physicians conducted in June found that medical students and residents reported lower overall well-being than physicians. “Three-quarters of medical students have felt inappropriate feelings of anger, tearfulness, or anxiety” compared to 68% of residents and 53% of physicians.

And about seven in 10 medical students and six in 10 doctors and residents who responded to the survey said they “often have feelings of burnout.”

“Not only must we do better for today’s physicians, but we must also help create a better reality for the physicians of tomorrow,” the report’s authors concluded.

Medical students and residents surveyed pointed to a perceived stigma surrounding those who seek mental health care. Almost half of medical students and residents reported that either they or a colleague they knew were afraid of accessing mental health care “given questions asked in medical licensure/credentialing/insurance applications,” according to the survey.

Keep reading here.—KW

Do you work in healthcare or have information about the industry that we should know? Email Kristine at [email protected]. For confidential conversations, ask Kristine for her number on Signal.

Today’s top healthcare reads.

Stat: Heart disease deaths among US adults who had obesity cited as a contributing factor tripled between 1999 and 2020. (the Washington Post)

Quote: “I was sitting in a hair salon a few days ago and some people started joking about me giving birth on the side of the road. And in that moment, I just pictured all the things that could go wrong with my baby and broke down in tears in front of strangers.”—Alisha Alderson, a pregnant woman who resides in a “maternity care desert” in Oregon (the Associated Press)

Read: A North Carolina pilot program targeting social determinants of health is testing whether better access to food and housing can improve Medicaid health outcomes. (Stat News)