Proposal to implementation time-driven activity based costing (TDABC) for calculation of surgical procedure costs of a medium-sized teaching hospital

Abstract

Hospitals have several distinct services besides in-patient and out-patient health care. This service diversity leads to huge complexity and to high cost of the hospital management. However, specific characteristics of health services, such as the diversity of professionals and their autonomy, the variety of procedures, the different types of information and often the lack of an integrated system of information, make cost calculation a big challenge. In Brazil, there are only a few hospitals that can calculate their costs and utilize them as a tool for effective management. This study presents the preliminary results of TDABC use for calculating the costs of surgical procedures at a medium-sized hospital, as well as to use business process analysis and modeling for its implementation. The results attained so far indicate that TDABC is an adequate method for calculation and effective control of costs and a tool for improving processes as well.