Time-Driven, Activity-Based Costing to Reduce Interventional Radiology Suite Idle Time

Background With the ever-increasing complexity of today’s healthcare environment, it is evident that there is a higher demand to deliver high-quality, accessible, efficient, and affordable healthcare. At the same time, these changes are accompanied by decreasing rates of reimbursement. This can be attributed to the shift from fee-for-service to value-based payment methods in the industry. The reception of such changes in the appropriate manner is crucial to improvement and the much-demanded reform in our healthcare system. To adapt to this changing landscape, hospitals and healthcare systems must incorporate proper measures to identify extraneous spending, control costs, and streamline patient care. Our goal in this study was to use the time-driven, activity-based costing (TDABC) model to quantify the costs at every step as an inpatient goes through the care process in an interventional radiology department. Methodology After identification and mapping of all the steps involved from interventional radiology (IR) consult placement to patient transport to the postoperative recovery area, time data were collected for each step of the process. One of the steps was then selected for intervention. Our focus was on the time interval between one patient leaving after a completed procedure and the next scheduled patient entering the IR suite (heretofore referred to as idle time). To decrease the idle room time between patients, the interventional radiologists, IR administrations, nurse manager, transportation manager, and charge nurse first met as a group to set a realistic initial goal. Pre-intervention data were collected. Results After the collection of pre-intervention data, the average idle time of the IR suite was found to be 40 minutes. After a multidisciplinary discussion, our goal was to reduce this time to 25 minutes. Post-intervention data found the average time decreased to 24 minutes. Calculation of average costs per unit time for staff, IR room, and equipment yielded an approximate cost of $57 per minute of time in the IR suite. Conclusions Considering the near 40% decrease in suite idle time as well as the cost per minute of material, equipment, and staff (at ~80% capacity), this study proves that the TDABC system is a viable method of targeting bottlenecks in operations and streamlining patient care by reducing costs while optimizing the process patients go through during care continuum.