title: Animated-simulation modeling facilitates clinical-process costing.
abstract: Traditionally, the finance department has assumed responsibility for assessing process costs in healthcare organizations. To enhance process-improvement efforts, however, many healthcare providers need to include clinical staff in process cost analysis. Although clinical staff often use electronic spreadsheets to model the cost of specific processes, PC-based animated-simulation tools offer two major advantages over spreadsheets: they allow clinicians to interact more easily with the costing model so that it more closely represents the process being modeled, and they represent cost output as a cost range rather than as a single cost estimate, thereby providing more useful information for decision making.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Policy and Administration, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, School of Public Health, USA. wzelman@unc.edu
authors.forename: W N
authors.initials: WN
authors.lastname: Zelman
authors.forename: N D
authors.initials: ND
authors.lastname: Glick
authors.forename: C C
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Blackmore
mesh_terms: D000066:Accounting / Q000379:methods; D003198:Computer Simulation; D003365:Costs and Cost Analysis / Q000379:methods; D005377:Financial Management, Hospital / Q000379:methods*; D017721:Hospital Costs / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000191:economics*; D008432:Mathematical Computing; D017059:Models, Econometric; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed / Q000191:economics*; D014481:United States