Digital online content package for "Cost measurement in value-based health care: a systematic review"

Half of these studies measured hospital costs (110, 51.2%) and the rest relied on reimbursement amounts. Sophisticated costing methods that allocate both direct and indirect costs to care paths were seen as able to provide valuable managerial information by facilitating care path adjustments (39), benchmarking (38), the identification of cost drivers (47) and the measurement of total costs or cost savings (26). We found three best practices that were key to success in cost measurement: process mapping (33), expert input (17) and observations (24).

Conclusions Cost information can facilitate VBHC. Time-driven activity-based costing (TDABC) is viewed as the best method although its ability to inform decision-making depends on how it is implemented. While costing short, or partial, care paths and surgical episodes produces accurate cost information, it provides only limited decision-making information.

Practitioners are advised to focus on costing full care cycles and to consider both direct and indirect costs through TDABC.