• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing Administration
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.17-29
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• 2002

The purpose of this study was to examine the application of the Activity-based Costing(ABC) system to analyze the cost of nursing services in the delivery room in a major medical center.The results of this study are as follows;1. In order to calculate the cost of nursing activities, 67 activities of staff nurses on a delivery room were identified and classified as direct nursing activities(45.2%), the indirect activities(32.1%), general management activities(13.9%) and others(8.8%).2. Nursing cost in the delivery room was classified into activity cost(29.9%) and common cost(70.1%). Activity cost involved direct activity cost of staff nurses. The common costs were categorized into indirect activity & general management cost of staff nurses, management cost of the head nurse and activity cost of assistants.3. The final cost objects of nursing services in the delivery room were nursing service for women who had normal vaginal deliveries and nursing service for women who had preterm labor.The total cost of nursing service for a woman who had a normal vaginal delivery was 165,710 won (100.0%). The cost incurred through direct activity cost of staff nurses(58,242 won, 35.1%), indirect activity & general management cost of staff nurses (55,643 won, 33.6%), management cost of head nurse (16,211 won, 9.8%), activity cost of assistants (35,614 won, 21.5%).If the number of days of hospitalization was presumed to be 14 days, the total cost of nursing service for woman who had preterm labor would be 1,845,901 won (100.0%). The cost incurred by direct activity cost of staff nurses in the activity cost (341,349 won, 18.5%), indirect activity & general management cost of staff nurses in the common cost(779,002 won, 42.2%), management cost of head nurse(226,954won, 12.3%), activity cost of assistants in the common cost(498,596 won, 27.0%).In this study, the cost of the nursing services in the delivery room was calculated based on the ABC system. The results of this study showed that resources are assigned to the nursing activities in the delivery room and the mechanisms for assigning the cost of activities for nursing services.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.37-69
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• 2001

A new cost management system, called Activity Based Costing (ABC) system, has arisen to solve the limitation of a Traditional Cost Accounting (TCA) system until last two decades and ABC has been applied by many companies. TCA systems have limitation in tracing cost because they arbitrarily allocate overhead cost to the cost objects without standard for direct cost distribution. ABC is an accounting system that assigns costs to products or services based on the resources they consume. The costs of all activities are traced to the products for which they are performed. Therefore ABC is a cost management system that provides a matrix to accurately quantify consumed resources triggered by activities and activities triggered by products and services. There is little implementation of ABC in the health services field, one of service industries, due to complicated and many activities, and volatile cost object. However, the necessity for applying reasonable cost accounting system is largely issuing as strategy responding hostile environment, and financial pressure, and it is imperative to implement the Activity Based Costing (ABC) system. Therefore, this study presents the framework to develop ABC system for total health service organizations. Cost objects in this study base on medical service activities per health insurance claim from one general hospital located in Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs). Medical service activities include all health insurance claims in the hospital. The purpose of the study is presenting useful tools and basic frame to develop Activity Based Costing system for health service organizations which want to use ABC system. The steps to develop ABC system for health service organizations are following: 1. Identifying of activity centers; 2. Definition of cost objects and activity by activity center; 3. Analysis of activity and tracing activity contribution; 4. Allocation of direct cost for specific activity; 5. Allocation of indirect cost for specific activity; 6. Allocation of depreciation for facilities, applicants, and consumption goods; 7. Allocation of administration cost; 8. Allocation of cost among activity centers; and 9. Tracing cost of cost objects by activity center. This study identified necessary information from existing reports which hospitals generally made by each step, and defined outcome which had to be produced in each step using this information. The steps of this study had limitation to apply all different size hospitals because the steps were structured ABC system by one hospital, however, this study used similar basic framework and methods with general cases. When a health service organization want to apply Activity Based Costing (ABC) system on all activities of it in future days, this study is very useful to design system structure in the health service organization.

• Proceedings of the Korean Operations and Management Science Society Conference
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• 1996.04a
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• pp.481-484
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• 1996

When logistics system is integrated with production system and marketing system, it takes a very important role of the business management. In general, measurement of logistics cost in logistics system uses the conventional cost assignment method. However the conventional method may result in the incorrect cost because the overhead cost may be incorrectly assigned to the products. Activity-Based Costing(ABC) was proposed as an alternative method which will distribute the overhead cost to each cost obeject more accurately. ABC assigns cost to activities based on the amounts of resources used by resource driver, and assigns cost to cost objects based on the amount of activities driver. This study proposes two heuristic algorithms. The first algorithm selects the best activity driver for each cost object by using correlation analysis. The best activity driver is the one that minimizes the sum of loss cost and measurement cost of activity driver. The second algorithm selects the best number of activities by using correlation analysis. The pair of activities with the highest correlation are combined into one if the saving of measurement cost is no less than the loss due to inaccurate distribution of overhead cost. In order to demonstrate the procedure and validity of the algorithms, Real data of one year from a paper manufacturer are used.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.239-250
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• 2014

The purpose of this research is to implement and develop the Economic Cost Driver Size(ECDS) extended model to determine the optimal cash driver size with measurement complexity cost and allocation fail cost. ECDS model can be used to seek both measurement accuracy and time efficiency of the Activity-Base Costing (ABC). The study also develops Activity Priority Number (APN) to evaluate the importance of nonvalue-added activities improvement and to determine the representative cost driver of value-added activities when applying ECDS model. APN consists of Severity Priority Number (SPN), Undetectablitiy Priority Number (UPN) and Occurrence Priority Number (OPN). APN can be obtained from lower-stream activity, current activity, upper-stream activity in terms of hierarchical dependency of SIPOC (Supplier, Input, Process, Output, and Customer). In order to seek both efficiency of invested capital and reduction of overhead cost, the paper proposes the integrated ABC and Economic Value Added (EVA) model using redesigned ABC-based statement of comprehensive income and EVA-based statement of financial position. For a better understanding of the proposed ABC-EVA integrated model, numerical examples are demonstrated in this paper. Cost drivers of ABC and capital drivers of EVA in the proposed model can be used to reduce activity overhead cost from ABC-based statement of comprehensive income and to lessen activity capital charge from EVA-based statement of financial position.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.88-109
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• 1998

The main purpose of this study is to compare the traditional cost system and ABC(Activity Based Cost) system of clinical laboratory department in a hospital. The study subject was 296 services in clinical laboratory from March, 1997 to August, 1997. In a new costing system, cost for a lab test consist of direct cost element, activity based cost element, and allocated common cost element. In a traditional cost system, cost elements included direct cost element and indirect cost allocated based on test volumes The major findings of this research were as follows. 1. In the application of ABC system, total cost was analyzed as follows. Direct cost was 39.3% of total cost. Activity cost and allocation were 20.9% and 39.8%, respectively. The results of analysis to use traditional cost system were as follows. Direct cost was 39.3% and it was as same as the result of direct cost of ABC system. Indirect cost was 60.7%. 2. Activities of clinical laboratory of subject hospital were registration, pre-test operation, test, test result handling, delivery, culture, post-test operation, technical support, management support, and educational support. 3. The differences of the case of higher number of test case being carried out, the cost of ABC system was lower than the cost of traditional cost system. Otherwise in the case of lower number of test case being carried out, the rests have not been appropriately evaluated, and effective management were needed in clinical laboratory.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.500-509
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• 2011

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.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.1117-1128
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• 2004

Purpose: This study was carried out to substantiate the application process of activity-based costing on the current cost of hospital home care (HHC) service. The study materials were documents, 120 client charts, health insurance demand bills, salary of 215 HHC nurses, operating expense, 6 HHC agencies, and 31 HHC nurses. Method: The research was carried out by analyzing the HHC activities and then collecting labor and operating expenses. For resource drivers, HHC activity performance time and workload were studied. For activity drivers, the number of HHC activity performances and the activity number of visits were studied. Result: The HHC activities were classified into 70 activities. In resource, the labor cost was 245￦per minute, operating cost was 9,570￦ per visit and traffic expense was an average of 12,750￦. In resource drivers, education and training had the longest time of 67 minutes. Average length of performance for activities was 13.7 minutes. The workload was applied as a relative value. The average cost of HHC was 62,741￦ and the cost ranged from 55,560￦ to 74,016￦. Conclusion: The fixed base rate for a visit in the current HHC medical fee should be increased. Exclusion from the current fee structure or flexible operation of traveling expenses should be reviewed.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.129-155
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• 2000

This empirical study, activity-based costing, a newly introduced approach that has proved to be an improvement over the conventional costing system in product or service costing, is applied at department of clinical pathology in K university hospital. The study subjects were 233 test procedures done in clinical laboratory of K university hospital. Activity analysis was done by interview, questionnaires, and time study, and the amount of resources consumed by each activity and their costs are then traced and applied to the laboratory tests. The main purpose of this study were to compare the test costs of activity-bases costing with those of conventional costing, and test fees of medical insurance, and to provide accurate cost informations for the decision makers of hospital. The major findings of this study were as belows. 1. The cost drivers for application of activity-based costing at clinical laboratory were cases of sample collection, case of specimen, cases of test, and volume-related allocation bases such as direct labor hours and total revenue of each test. 2. The profits of each clinical laboratory fields analyzed by conventional costing were different from the profits analyzed by activity-based costing, especially in the field of Urinalysis(approximately over estimated 750%). 3. The standard full costs by conventional costing were quite different from the costs computed by using activity-based costing, and the difference is most significant with the tests of long labor time. 4. From the comparison between costs computed by using activity-based costing and medical insurance fees, some test fees were significantly lower than the costs, especially in the non-automated fields. As described in this study, activity-based costing provides more accurate cost information than does conventional costing system. The former approach is especially important in the health care industry including hospitals in which planning and controlling the costs services provided are the key to maintaining a healthy financial status for the organization. Despite the contribution of activity-based costing the economic as well as technical feasibilities of implementing such a cost accounting system in an organization must be evaluated. In the development of activity-based costing systems, an activity analysis has to be conducted to identify activities that consume resources. This involves a detailed study of the organization's logistics and accounting information systems, and it is an expensive project in itself. Besides, it can be quite difficult and time consuming to identify and trace resource consumption to a specific activity. Thus the activity-based costing system should be implemented only when the decrease in cost of error far exceeds the increase in cost of measurement. By combining activity-based costing with standard costing, health care administrators can better plan and control the costs of health services provided while ensuring that the organization's bottom line is healthy.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2009.05a
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• pp.1100-1106
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• 2009

General contractors' overhead costs are increasing relative to direct costs. However, it is difficult to apply the traditional activity-based costing directly to the construction site overhead costing because the resource consumption rate per each activity is varied depending on the attributes of activities. The research develops a methodology of hybrid cost allocation system when resources are assigned to cost objects unlike the traditional activity-based costing. The study also develops a database program and demonstrates how it can be applied to the construction projects using a case study.

• The Journal of Korean Academy of Prosthodontics
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• v.51 no.4
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• pp.292-299
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• 2013

Purpose: There is a growing concern for the cost management of medical institutions. The purpose of this study was to estimate Activity-Based Costing (ABC) for dental implant cost. ABC refers to allocating resources or cost based on the activities of services. Materials and methods: A dental institution located in the metropolitan area was selected in this study. The tax accounting data of the institution were utilized to confirm total cost, and the institution was asked to make out clinical activities to figure out what activities were carried out. The direct cost and indirect cost for dental implant were separately estimated, and cost driver was analyzed to estimate the indirect cost accurately. Results: The rates of the direct and indirect cost respectively stood at 35.8 and 49.5 percent. The cost for a dental implant was found to be approximately 1,579 won, and the cost of prosthetic surgery and treatment that included implant surgery accounted for the largest portion of the cost, which was 470 thousand won (30%). And the weight of training and education on dentistry was relatively higher than that of the other kinds of treatment. Conclusion: In order to ensure accurate and scientific costing for dental implant, not only direct medical procedure but every pre- and post-procedure activity should fully be taken into account. Pre-activities, post-activities, education and training are included in the indirect cost, but all these activities are mandatory and associated with the quality of treatment and the satisfaction level of patients.