4.2. A profitability analysis per department
In order to adequately assess the outpatient clinic financial
position, the gross profit per patient was calculated.
Therefore, we compared the different consultation costs
with the government’s payments at the moment of this
study. Table 6 gives the results of this analysis and shows
a gross profit for a standard consultation between 4.05D
and 17.04D . For the more demanding patients of Urology
and Gastroenterology the results are negative and
equal −6.23D and −40.39D , respectively. Although the
government’s tariffs cover the costs of simple consultations,
this amount will not cover the more complex
consultations (for example, Urology and Gastroenterology).
4.3. Future investment decisions
Next to the small changes above, clinic’s management
and department heads paid special attention to the TDABC
data in designing the new building plans for the new outpatient
clinic. In doing so, they concluded that the new
outpatient clinic needed to contain less squared meters
for the supporting activities and more squared meters
for the consultation activities. By this, the clinic’s management
and department heads hoped to centralize all
secretariats and increase the personal patients’ care. Furthermore,
through the multifunctional use of the cabinets
– namely as a meeting room, study space or as place
for completing the hospitalisation files – the occupancy
rate would also be kept as low as possible. Also the
construction of a librarywas considered. Next to this, additional
optimisation projects for the storage of materials,
the organization of the pharmacy and a univocal classification
system for all departments were discussed. In
that way, the TDABC system played a significant role in
the prioritization and cost justification of improvement
projects.