Maintaining FDA Voluntary Standards: Taking Care of Vineland

Foodborne illness is a serious public health threat. The Vineland Health Department (VHD) is committed to minimize this threat by reducing the occurrence of their most common risk factors through active managerial controls. In 2003, the VHD enrolled in the FDA’s voluntary national Retail Food Program Standards (VNRFPS) to improve its retail food safety program and further protect the public. The VHD was the first in the country to meet all 9 standards in 2012. In the past 18 months to 2 years, the VHD has increasingly struggled to maintain the inspection frequency required by the FDA’s VNRFPS under Standard 3. This is primarily due to increased responsibilities in other areas and the computer programs that VHD inspectors are mandated to use. The current computer programs in use are not specifically designed for health departments. The use of this generic software is unduly time-consuming and an extremely inefficient use of inspector time. In order to keep up with the inspection frequency required by Standard 3 and the staffing level requirement of Standard 8, the VHD must either hire another licensed inspector or reduce the amount of time inspectors spend writing reports and entering actions into the computer. Standard 8 limits the range of inspections per full time equivalent inspector. Currently, an average report and data entry for one facility will take 1 to 2.5 hours minimum to complete. Additional time is spent if there are many violations. The economic downturn has taken a toll on the City of Vineland. Hiring an additional inspector is not feasible at this time or in the foreseeable future. However, the purchase and use of software specifically designed for retail food inspections, with FDA acceptable reports, will reduce computer time by 50% at the very least, with the potential for even more efficiencies to be realized. The VHD inspectors would then have more time for inspecting, educating the persons in charge and foodhandlers about risk factors and their controls. Currently, cold holding is out of compliance in 60% of full service restaurants and 40% of delis in Vineland. Employee health is out of compliance from 80% to 100% in all categories. In conclusion, the primary objective of this project is to reduce the incidence of employee health violations by 40% and cold holding by 20% overall in the next risk factor study. The next risk factor study will start in 2019.