Thursday, July 31, 2014

LRA Members: Help provide valuable feedback to the La. Dept. of Health & Hospitals

As part of the Louisiana Restaurant Association's advocacy activities, we work in collaboration with state entities that regulate and have oversight for our industry. Last year, we passed an updated permit fee initiative for all foodservice establishments in Louisiana, working in close association with the Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH). We planned this modest fee change for over 18 months and had gained the assurance from the Governor's office that if the bill passed, he would sign it into law. (This is one of the few fee bills Governor Jindal has signed during his term.)

The funds generated were dedicated to maintaining our state's outstanding record of food safety in our restaurants, catering operations, convenience stores, hotels and other permit holders. We asked the DHH to add a new position that would provide outreach to the industry while carrying this feedback to the field sanitarian staff to ensure more consistency in site visits and reporting. In addition, they committed to add several new sanitarian supervisors around the state that could provide additional follow-up when a permit holder had an issue with their assigned sanitarian. Another enhancement to the DHH system will be their installation of an upgraded field reporting program that will be consistent across the state. 

We are circulating this electronic survey request from the DHH for LRA members to complete. Mr. Scott Green of DHH, who serves as their quality control liaison, will be reviewing the responses and then meeting with the Chief Sanitarian and Assistant Secretary to assess how the industry thinks they are meeting their responsibilities.

Please click HERE to access the survey. It should only take a few minutes to complete. Your responses will be anonymous and used to assist the DHH in measuring how they are doing and what they can improve on.

The deadline to complete the survey is Friday, August 8, 2014. The survey can be found here

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