Costs of interdisciplinary practice in a school-based health center

In the context of market-driven health care reform, interest in cost and quality outcomes has increased. Quality, as defined by Donabedian, includes assessment of structure, process, and outcomes. However, the definition of quality in health care must be expanded to include the expectations and opinions of patients, their representatives, and society. The purpose of this article is to examine the outcome variable of costs in a specific nursing practice setting. Cost is frequently defined as the judicious use of resources consumed by structures and processes of care. This article presents activity-based costing methodology and results of a cost study of primary care and mental health services provided by advanced practice nurses (APNs) in a school-based health center. The application of the methods and outcomes of this pilot study has significant implications for the delivery of health care by APNs in a variety of settings, including community nursing centers, freestanding birthing centers, and rural and urban neighborhood centers. Because much of the health care delivered by APNs in these community-based settings includes health promotion, screening, counseling, and anticipatory guidance, it is important to explore methods such as activity-based costing to identify actual costs of care (versus charges) in emerging community-based practices where primary care is delivered by APNs.