I’m learning lots at HIMSS this week. One of the sessions I attended examined how real-time intelligence can reduce the cost of care. At first blush, I thought it would be about real-time “analytics,” but I was incorrect.
What I found was an M.D. talking about actionable cost accounting. Kind of a nice change, I’d say. Even though he was speaking about a particular vendor solution, it was refreshing to see a clinician discussing this topic.
How do we make cost data real time? Traditional costing applications typically take months to produce results. With episodic focused activity based costing algorithms, it is possible to perform near-time costing calculations.
This presenter suggests that we start with labor because labor costs average 60-70% of the total. Use cases were discussed about labor utilization productivity tracking, supply and RX utilization compliance, time keeping compliance and patient movement coordination.
I wonder how we can actually perform “activity based costing” without also advancing the interoperability landscape in healthcare.
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