Randy Williams grew up in a house with four sisters and a single mom who never asked for help.
“She was always going to do it herself, and she worked hard to do that,” Randy says.
“As I got older, you remember days where we all were eating, and Mom was like, ‘I’ll eat a little bit later.’ And you think to yourself, ‘Did she go to sleep hungry that night?’ But she never asked for help.”
His mom’s sacrifice inspired Randy’s passion for giving back — and for not wanting people to go hungry. Randy, the dietary patient service manager at UPMC Mercy, devised a program to provide meals to food-insecure patients and caregivers upon discharge.
Since its December 2023 launch, the program has provided thousands of meals for about 650 patients and caregivers.
“It’s so rewarding, and it’s helping such a population that really needs it,” Randy says. “It’s just been so fulfilling.”
A Life of Service
Randy has spent most of his life serving others. He spent 11 years in the Army, where he rose to the rank of sergeant and deployed to combat zones twice.
That military experience made him appreciate his mother even more and gave him a new look at poverty.
“It was 2004, and I’m going through cities that don’t have sewage,” he says. “They can’t flush a toilet. And that’s something I’ve never dealt with. They don’t have trash pickup.
“You learn to appreciate the small things, and that just stayed with me.”
Randy had always had a passion for food. After his military service, he returned to Pittsburgh and worked as a sous chef or chef in various restaurants.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Randy was looking for a change. He saw a listing for a team lead position in UPMC Mercy‘s kitchen and dining department and applied. He officially began in February 2021.
Spotting a Need
The inspiration for the meal discharge program came on Randy’s very first day at UPMC Mercy.
He saw a high amount of food waste, which bothered him.
“I came from a world where we always pinch pennies,” Randy says. “We always had to manage our waste. Things didn’t go into the garbage, they went in the soup, you know?
“So that was my mindset coming in. And just saying that this was just standard practice, you know, it was just, ‘There has to be a way that we can do something.’”
As a new hire, Randy didn’t want to push too hard too soon. He contacted his manager at the time and asked if there was anything they could do about the food waste. However, the COVID-19 pandemic posed logistical challenges to sending the excess food elsewhere.
Over the next two years, Randy began to take on more of a leadership role in his department. He got promoted manager in 2023. Later that year, after returning from paternity leave following the birth of his daughter, Randy joined UPMC Mercy’s new Sustainability Committee.
The Sustainability Committee focused on reducing waste in many hospital areas. As a representative of kitchen and dining, Randy mentioned the issue of food waste.
“The problem hadn’t gone away,” Randy says. “We were still wasting a ton of food.
“I still had a massive resource. I just needed to find a different avenue to put it in.”
As the committee discussed how to better use the excess food from UPMC Mercy’s kitchen, they came up with two solutions. A large portion of the excess food would go to 412 Food Rescue, a southwestern Pennsylvania organization that distributes it to needy people.
The remainder of the food would go toward a meal-discharge program.
Addressing a Problem
Hospital readmissions are a nationwide problem. Nationally, about 15% of patients have an unplanned hospital readmission within 30 days of discharge. Food insecurity is one of many potential causes of readmissions.
Those factors inspired the idea for UPMC Mercy’s meal-discharge program.
“A lot of patients get some sent out with medications that they need to take with food, and we’ve never asked, ‘Do they have the ability to eat?’” Randy says.
“Nutrition’s such an important part to the healing process. So, maybe this will help with some readmits. Maybe this patient can take the medication and help with healing. If I could do my part and help one person, then it’s been a success to me.”
The program is available for patients or patients and caregivers. Patients receive enough meals for three days — three individual bowls of cereal, plus six frozen meals. Patients and caregivers receive enough meals for two days — four individual bowls of cereal and eight frozen meals.
UPMC Mercy’s meal-discharge program is accessible to all patients, regardless of their economic status. The only requirement is that they can properly and safely store the frozen meals.
“I never wanted to just paint this as an initiative for people that are dealing with just food insecurities based off of socioeconomic reasons,” Randy says. “We are one of the biggest, if not the biggest (rehabilitation facilities) in the system. There are people in the hospital for 30 days after a stroke, and you might be leaving here with some insecurities.
“You could be a millionaire, but if you don’t have the means to get food, that’s an insecurity. That was always my focus. It’s just to help people who just really needed that help, no matter what it looked like.”
Randy says even a few days’ worth of food can make a big difference in a patient’s recovery.
“Even if it’s just for a couple of days, if you could take that stressor away, it’s a win,” he says.
A Smooth Operation
Now that it’s been in place for a year and a half, the meal discharge program works smoothly. Kitchen and dining staff take food that hasn’t entered the service line, safely cool it, and build individual meals in reusable containers.
The meals, which Randy compares to TV dinners, are about 12 ounces in size and contain a protein, a vegetable, and a starch. Vegetarian and other dietary options are available.
“We try to take different components of different meals throughout the week because we work on a weekly meal cycle and kind of mix and match,” Randy says. “So, even though you’re going home with some of the same components, it looks different. It gives you a different taste because you’re blending this ingredient with that ingredient and things like that.
“We try to be able to make this accessible to as many people as possible.”
The meals remain frozen. When patients get discharged, members of UPMC Mercy’s care management and discharge planning team tell them about the meal-discharge program and ask if they’re interested.
On average, one or two patients a day take advantage of the program, Randy says.
“We cast a wide net. We ask everybody,” Randy says. “(To) every patient, they say, ‘Hey, we have this program.’ And people who really need it take it.
“And there might be people who take it that may not need it. But that’s OK, too. You ask everybody, cast a big enough net, and you catch more fish.”
UPMC Mercy is an especially useful site for the program because of its status as one of the top-ranked hospitals in the nation for rehabilitation. Many patients spend weeks in the hospital recovering from strokes or injuries, followed by time in the UPMC Rehabilitation Institute at UPMC Mercy Pavilion.
“By the time they get discharged from the (UPMC Rehabilitation Institute), they have been in our hospital or in a hospital setting for three weeks (or) close to a month,” says Laura Merriman, manager, Clinical Care Coordination Discharge Planning, UPMC Mercy. “So, it’s a little bit easier to get the buy-in from the discharge plan managers in the Rehab Institute to be able to provide meals not only to the patients that are discharging, but the caregivers that they’re also discharging, too.
“That was a way for UPMC to help ease the burden of care.”
A Success Story
The meal discharge program has exceeded Randy’s expectations so far. It’s served two important purposes: helping people in need and reducing food waste.
In addition to the meals distributed to patients, UPMC Mercy’s kitchen donated 35,000 pounds of food to 412 Food Rescue in 2024.
Randy says he’s heard nothing but a positive response about the program.
“It just feels really rewarding. It’s humbling,” Randy says. “I’m just a small fish in a huge pond, you know. But it just feels really, really good to be able to do for others.”
Randy says the program couldn’t have happened without a major team effort at UPMC Mercy, including hospital leadership, the care management team, and the workers in kitchen and dining.
“It’s been a great, wonderful partnership,” Laura says.
“I think that people often categorize hospitals as working in silos. And this is one of the programs that is sort of thinking outside the box, speaking to the excellence (and) innovation of UPMC, that we have two departments that aren’t necessarily traditionally connected to one another, and in this way, they are connected to one another. And I think that’s what makes it wonderful.”
UPMC Mercy’s meal-discharge program is the first of its kind in the UPMC system. But Randy hopes to see other hospitals adopt similar programs in the future.
“I try to tell people, you don’t have to do it the way we do it,” he says. “If your facility can only do one day, do one day. If you can only do one meal, do one meal.
“Those small acts of kindness go a long way.”