• Gino Inverso, Michael D Lappi, Susan J Flath-Sporn, Ronald Heald, David C Kim, and John G Meara.
• From the *Department of Plastic and Oral Surgery, Boston Children's Hospital; †Harvard School of Dental Medicine; and ‡Harvard Medical School; and §Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA.
• Ann Plast Surg. 2015 Jun 1;74(6):672-6.

BackgroundProcess management within a health care setting is poorly understood and often leads to an incomplete understanding of the true costs of patient care. Using time-driven activity-based costing methods, we evaluated the high-volume, low-complexity diagnosis of plagiocephaly to increase value within our clinic.MethodsA total of 59 plagiocephaly patients were evaluated in phase 1 (n = 31) and phase 2 (n = 28) of this study. During phase 1, a process map was created, encompassing each of the 5 clinicians and administrative personnel delivering 23 unique activities. After analysis of the phase 1 process maps, average times as well as costs of these activities were evaluated for potential modifications in workflow. These modifications were implemented in phase 2 to determine overall impact on visit-time and costs of care.ResultsImprovements in patient education, workflow coordination, and examination room allocation were implemented during phase 2, resulting in a reduced patient visit-time of 13:25 (19.9% improvement) and an increased cost of $8.22 per patient (7.7% increase) due to changes in physician process times. However, this increased cost was directly offset by the availability of 2 additional appointments per day, potentially generating $7904 of additional annual revenue. Quantifying the impact of a 19.9% reduction in patient visit-time at an increased cost of 7.7% resulted in an increased value ratio of 1.113.ConclusionsThis pilot study effectively demonstrates the novel use of time-driven activity-based costing in combination with the value equation as a metric for continuous process improvement programs within the health care setting.

19 keywords...

hide…