Cost Analysis of Nursing Services in the Delivery Room Using Activity-Based Costing

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.ope