Time-driven activity-based costing for patients with multiple chronic conditions: a mixed-method study to cost care in a multidisciplinary and integrated care delivery centre at a university-affiliated tertiary teaching hospital in Stockholm, Sweden

Abstract

Objective

This study can be applied to cost the complex non-standardised processes used to treat patients with multiple chronic conditions.

Design

A mixed-method approach to cost analysis, following a modified healthcare-specific version of the seven-step Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing (TDABC) approach.

Setting

A multidisciplinary integrated and person-centred care delivery centre at a university-affiliated tertiary teaching hospital in Stockholm, Sweden, designed to improve care coordination for patients with multiple chronic conditions, specifically diabetes, cardiovascular disease and kidney disease.

Participants

314 patients (248 men and 66 women) fit inclusion criteria. Average age was 80 years.

Results

This modified TDABC analysis costed outpatient care for patients with multiple chronic conditions. The approach accounted for the difficulty of conceptualising care cycles. The estimated total cost, stratified by resources, can be reviewed together with existing managerial accounting statements to inform management decisions regarding the multidisciplinary centre.

Conclusions

This article demonstrates that the healthcare-specific seven-step approach to TDABC can be applied to cost care for patients with multiple chronic conditions, where pathways are not yet discernable. It became clear that there was a need for slight methodological adaptations for this particular patient group to make it possible to cost these pathways, stratified by activity and resource. The value of this approach can be discerned from the way management incorporated the results of this analysis into the development of their hospital strategy. In the absence of integrated data infrastructures that can link patients and resources across financial, clinical and process data sets, the scalability of this method will be difficult.