This paper describes the development and application
of a TDABC system for an outpatient clinic in Belgium. The
outpatient clinic is a consultation department where physicians with different specializations have their office hours
and where patients, after having an appointment, receive
medical advice. Depending on this advice further medical treatment or hospitalisation takes place. By definition,
all outpatient facilities are alike in having no overnight
patients.
While previous accounting studies have explored the
development and the role of cost-accounting studies in
more traditional hospital contexts [2], there has been relatively little analysis of the development and managerial
impact of cost systems in an outpatient clinic. This lack
of attention might be partly due to the absence of a legal
framework to report and register all costs in an outpatient
clinic environment[4]. Outpatient clinic services, however,
are an important part of the healthcare services sector [18].
An increasing number of community-level outpatient clinics are satellites of larger medical centres or systems, and
are thus part of a complex that can emphasize continuity
of care. This trend toward increased outpatient health care
corresponds with a growing workload at many outpatient
clinics [18]. From an empirical standpoint, the outpatient
clinic therefore offers an attractive context for this study.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. In
Section 2, we briefly address the technique of TDABC. In
Section 3, we present the TDABC outpatient clinic case. In
Section4, we describe how the TDABC information induced
improved decision making in this case. We end with concluding remarks.