APPLICATION OF ACTIVITY BASED COSTING: CASE STUDY IN A CLINICAL ANALYSIS LABORATORY

Abstract

Brazilian hospital organizations are beginners when it comes to using managing tools. Under these circumstances, cost information becomes essential to the decision making process regarding their financial and operational management. Activity based costing is an example of such tools. Few publications describe researches on the use of this costing method in hospitals. However, there are no reports in the Brazilian hospital literature showing they have ever taken advantage of the use of this costing method in management. Almost all Brazilian researches on costs in hospital organizations focus on some specific sector (area), because of the complexity of studying this type of organization as a whole. This article describes the results of a research whose objective was to verify the costs of services rendered by hospitals. The research was limited to the clinical analysis laboratory of a philanthropical hospital, which is a hospital sector Brazilian researches have not dealt with yet. The laboratory is inside the hospital and run along with the other sectors (functional areas). The research method applied was the descriptive case study, and the data was collected through interviews, questionnaires, passive direct observation and documental research. The results showed that the cost of preventive examinations is smaller than the cost of examinations to support therapeutical diagnostic. The study revealed that activity based costing and activity based management showed effective results regarding the need of management information about costs.