Breast cancer treatment pathway improvement using time-driven activity-based costing

Time-driven activity-based costing (TDABC) is increasingly used to establish more accurate and time-dependent costs for complex health care pathways. We propose to extend this approach to detect the specific improvements (eg, lean methods) that can be introduced into a care process. We analyzed a care trajectory in radiation oncology for breast cancer patients at major Canadian urban hospital. This approach allowed us to identify the activities and resource groups related to the execution of each activity, and to estimate the execution time for each. Based on the model, we were able to extract financial data with which we could evaluate process costs. The total cost of the care trajectory was $2383.82 for 2015 to 2016. Out of a total of 1389 trajectories, only 268 were completed. The implementation of TDABC gives users a clearer idea of costs and encourages managers to understand how they break down over the course of a care trajectory. Once these costs are understood, decisions can be made regarding resource allocation and waste elimination, enabling lean methods to be implemented. The result is better reorganization of work by allocating resources differently, optimizing the care trajectory, and thereby reducing its costs.