Despite spending $170,000 on a flawed database, the state Health Department’s year-old color-coded restaurant ratings system still deserves praise for ensuring eateries are up to code.
With the goal of reducing foodborne illnesses, the program inspected 8,134 of 10,152 food establishments statewide, zeroing in on hand washing, food storage and handling, and optimal food temperatures, among other things.
Of the establishments inspected, 6,486 green placards were issued to restaurants, indicating no more than one critical violation that needed to be corrected. Another 1,648 received yellow placards with two or more violations that needed to be fixed. No red violations were issued.
Green placards equal pass (it’s safe to eat here). Yellow equals conditional pass (it’s safe, but there’s work to be done). Red equals doors are locked.
The placard program has forced restaurants to keep up with stringent industry standards. And ultimately it boosts consumer confidence when residents and visitors venture out to eat.
“The industry deserves a whole lot of credit for buying into the system,” said Peter Oshiro, the department’s Environmental Health Program Manager. Inspectors visited each establishment and provided handouts even before official inspections were made.
“The whole shift is the restaurants know what is expected,” he said.
But the department dealt with a major setback: its inability to roll out an electronic billing, permitting and online database of inspections for the 10,000-plus establishments statewide.
The state paid $170,000 to Paragon Bermuda Canada Ltd. to set up and maintain the system, but terminated the contract earlier this year due to “poor performance.” Inspectors often had difficulty getting into the system. It was slow. It didn’t load properly.
Oshiro said the program didn’t work 10 percent of the time — which was far too often. The system was set up correctly, but was not able to handle the capacity of more than 10,000 businesses. The department later learned the company had done this type of work before, but for jurisdictions that needed much smaller databases.
The department chucked the system. But unfortunately, there is no refund or exchange policy built into state contracts.
Instead, it is spending another $158,000 to redo a website database that was supposed to give the public online access to restaurant health inspections in 2013.
The fiasco is yet another example of a flawed state procurement system, which awards contracts to the lowest bidder — not always the most qualified. Oshiro contends he did the responsible thing by throwing out a system that simply did not work. However, questions must be raised, and answers insisted, on how and why defective work product continually plagues state contracts. Taxpayers’ hard-earned money pay for these, and tighter controls must come to bear.
Despite its technical gaffes, the food-safety program has beefed up the number of inspectors in the field and establishments can expect to be checked at least one to three times a year based on their risk factors. On Oahu alone, the program now employs 29 food establishment inspectors, up from nine in 2011.
When the Web-based food-safety inspection system is up and running, diners will be able to access all of the inspection results — not just view a green, yellow or red placard. The placards may also be embedded with a QR (quick response) code so potential customers can wave their smart device or phone over the placard and immediately see results of the restaurant’s last inspection.
Once the technology is in place, there will be more information and transparency behind the colored placards. We need to insist on the same regarding the vetting of procured contracts.
