Six months after Health Services employees began using their DukeCards to purchase food at various locations in the Medical Center, Hardee's and Domino's are joining the crowd.
John Diaz, director of the DukeCard system, has been working with Hospital Food Services and hopes the point-of-sale registers will be installed and operating in the two Duke Hospital South eateries by the end of October.
"We just have to make sure that whatever we do is in agreement with the existing contract [between the franchises and Hospital Food Services]," Diaz said. "We're working on the little details, but we have approval for the project."
The DukeCard was implemented as an identification badge for approximately 16,000 Duke Health Services employees in fall 1998.
In April, several eateries began accepting the DukeCard, and card readers were installed in 32 vending machines. Diaz said more vending machines will soon be equipped with card readers as well.
Diaz, who called the addition of Hardee's and Domino's to the list of DukeCard services "just one of several phases" the DukeCard has gone through in the Medical Center, said he hopes to expand the use of the card there.
Once Hardee's and Domino's join the DukeCard system, only a few vendors run by Hospital Auxiliary Services, such as gift shops, will remain unaffiliated.
"We'd like to make it so that any place you can spend money in the hospital, you can use FLEX, just like at the University," he said.
"As more people use [the DukeCard], we're able to offer more services."
Joe Pietrantoni, vice president for auxiliary services, said the main reasons for the expansion are to speed up service in the Medical Center and to make employees feel safer by not having to carry cash.
Diaz said he has been working with Hardee's on the project for about two months. A month ago, Allen Tyndall, owner of Domino's in Hospital South and on Main Street, approached Pietrantoni about accepting the DukeCard.
Employees can add money to their FLEX account at the DukeCard office in the West Union building or at any of four value transfer stations in the Medical Center, or they can opt for payroll deduction. Although five hundred employees currently use FLEX accounts, Diaz anticipates that number to increase as the DukeCard system expands.
"The more places where people can use FLEX, the more likely they are to sign up and use it on a regular basis," he said.
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