Analysis of Cost and Efficiency of a Medical Nursing Unit Using Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing.
10.4040/jkan.2011.41.4.500
- Author:
Ji Young LIM
1
;
Mi Ja KIM
;
Chang Gi PARK
Author Information
1. Department of Nursing, Inha University, Incheon, Korea. lim20712@inha.ac.kr
- Publication Type:Original Article ; English Abstract ; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
- Keywords:
Costs and cost analysis;
Patients' rooms;
Efficiency
- MeSH:
Costs and Cost Analysis;
Hospitals, General/economics;
Humans;
Internal Medicine/*economics;
Nursing Service, Hospital/*economics;
Task Performance and Analysis;
Time Factors
- From:Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
2011;41(4):500-509
- CountryRepublic of Korea
- Language:Korean
-
Abstract:
PURPOSE: Time-driven activity-based costing was applied to analyze the nursing activity cost and efficiency of a medical unit. METHODS: Data were collected at a medical unit of a general hospital. Nursing activities were measured using a nursing activities inventory and classified as 6 domains using Easley-Storfjell Instrument. Descriptive statistics were used to identify general characteristics of the unit, nursing activities and activity time, and stochastic frontier model was adopted to estimate true activity time. RESULTS: The average efficiency of the medical unit using theoretical resource capacity was 77%, however the efficiency using practical resource capacity was 96%. According to these results, the portion of non-added value time was estimated 23% and 4% each. The sums of total nursing activity costs were estimated 109,860,977 won in traditional activity-based costing and 84,427,126 won in time-driven activity-based costing. The difference in the two cost calculating methods was 25,433,851 won. CONCLUSION: These results indicate that the time-driven activity-based costing provides useful and more realistic information about the efficiency of unit operation compared to traditional activity-based costing. So time-driven activity-based costing is recommended as a performance evaluation framework for nursing departments based on cost management.
