Tampa General Hospital hosted CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz on July 23 for a tour of the academic health system’s food-as-medicine program at its Davis Islands campus.
Dr. Oz sampled a Mediterranean diet-inspired menu developed by Iron Chef Geoffrey Zakarian in collaboration with Tanuja Sharma, MD, Tampa General’s medical director of integrative medicine and arts. The menu is part of the hospital’s Food is Medicine initiative, which aims to speed patient recovery through nutrient-dense meals.
During the visit, Dr. Oz met with Tampa General’s kitchen staff, dietitians and food service coordinators who run the program day to day, and toured the hospital’s care coordination center, which uses artificial intelligence and data analytics to support clinical decision-making.
The visit follows a July 16 trip to Tampa General by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins, during which Tampa General became the first hospital in the nation to sign the “Make Hospital Food Healthy Again” pledge.
That pledge builds on a March 30 CMS memo reminding hospitals of existing obligations under Medicare’s Conditions of Participation — including meeting individual patients’ nutritional needs, maintaining dietitian oversight and keeping therapeutic diet manuals current — and calling on them to align menus and procurement with the 2025-2030 dietary guidelines for Americans.
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