Design and Implementation of an Activity Based Costing system (ABC/M) faced to the health sector and focused on a Radiotherapy Department

The research stated below is the result of the Final Degree Project of Higher Technical Telecommunication Engineering at ETSETB, technical school of Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) and presented by Oriol Bou. The main aim of this research is to study in depth health centres management and, more specifically, a radiotherapy department management, in order to optimise process efficiency and effectiveness, as well as to guarantee the quality information supply which will allow substantiated decision-making process in a lower period of time. This objective will be reached through the introduction of a new activity-based cost system (ABC/M) in order to obtain the required information to generate the data collection that a complete reporting tool demands. This aforementioned report permits, in an objective way, to quantify the indirect costs, in order to know the efficiency and underused rate of organisational resources. Designing first and then introducing a personalised ABC/M system within the organisation has permitted to analyse in depth the Institut Català dâ Oncologia radiotherapy unit in the course of two years, in order to detect where the organisation improvement opportunities were. This contribution has enabled to quantify the personnel needs and their related cost, which directly affects management and resources optimisation, permitting either widening the staff or restricting it according to demand necessities. The direct consequence of the ABC/M system is a proper sized staff at any time. In the same way, the research has contributed to detect the most expensive activities within the organisation, and which consequently, have to try to be reduced in order to optimise treatment costs