Nutrition and dieteticsNutrition and dieteticsNutrition and dietetics

Patients & visitors

Coming to hospital

Meals and nutrition in hospital

Good nutrition is an important part of your care while you're in hospital. On this page you'll find information about ordering meals, dietary requirements, bringing food into hospital and getting help with eating during your stay.

Ordering meals

Austin Health uses an electronic meal ordering system called CBORD. You may be able to use CBORD to order your meals during your stay.

  • If CBORD is not available where you are staying, a member of our Food Services team (menu monitor) will help you order your meals.
  • If you're unable to choose your meals, a suitable meal will be selected for you.
  • If you're attending tests, procedures or surgery, your meal order may be adjusted to suit your care and treatment schedule.

Using CBORD

Use CBORD to order meals:

Creating a CBORD account

To create an account, you will need:

  • your UR number (the patient identification number on your hospital ID band)
  • your date of birth
  • the facility ID for the hospital where you are staying.

Facility IDs

  • Austin Hospital: Austin
  • Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital: Repat
  • Royal Talbot Rehabilitation Centre: Talbot.

You can also use CBORD without creating an account by selecting Skip on the Create account screen.

Ordering for someone else

Parents, carers, family members and friends can place meal orders on behalf of a patient using CBORD.

Order cut-off times

To receive your preferred meal choices, place your order before:

  • Breakfast: 4:45 am
  • Lunch: 7:45 am
  • Dinner: 12:30 pm.

Need help?

If you need help choosing or ordering meals, speak with a member of our Food Services team (menu monitor). They can assist you with using CBORD or place an order on your behalf.

Download our CBORD guide

For step-by-step instructions on creating an account, ordering meals and cancelling orders, download our CBORD guide.

Links and downloads

Dietary requirements

Tell your nurse if you have dietary, allergy, cultural or religious requirements. Our CBORD meal ordering system will tailor available menu options to your dietary needs.

Bringing food and drinks into hospital

Austin Health can accommodate for all special dietary requirements, speak to your treating team about any concerns that you may have.

Before eating food and drink not provided by the hospital, you will need to check with your treating team (nurse, doctor, dietitian or/and speech pathologist). This includes food from cafes located within our hospitals and food delivery orders. Your medications or treatments may impact what's safe to eat. 

Carers and visitors must also check with the treating team before feeding or giving any food or nutritional feeds to patients.

Due to food safety regulations:

  • food brought in from home needs to be labelled with the patients name
  • food stored in ward patient pantries must be dated and will only be stored for a maximum of 24 hours
  • staff cannot reheat food stored for consumption at a later time.

What you can do

To support good nutrition during your stay:

  • Order your meals on time each day to receive your preferred meal choices.
  • Keep your bed table clear for meals
  • Bring dentures to hospital and make sure you’re wearing them
  • Check with your nurse before having food brought in from outside

Tell your nurse if you:

  • Have any food allergies and special dietary needs
  • Eating difficulties, such as trouble swallowing
  • Need help to complete your menu, eat meals or open food and drink packaging
  • Have lost weight without trying. Ask to be weighed weekly.
  • Have been eating less than half of your usual food