Assessing the Patient Care Expenses and Cost per Bed of a Medical Intensive Care Unit (micu) of a Tertiary Care Teaching Hospital Using Cost Block Method

Health care, an organized provision of medical care to individuals or a community, is one of the most important aspects of providing quality services to the needy individuals. Cost of healthcare depends on (a) Disease condition; (b) Coverage by insurance; (c) Medical service provider; and (d) Healthcare infrastructure. Patients in need of critical medical care and continuous monitoring by specialized staff are treated under specific areas of hospital called Intensive Care Units (ICUs), which have been known to consume ~34% of hospital budgets. The present study thus focuses on identifying major cost drivers of MICU of a tertiary care teaching hospital. The aim of the study is to identify various patient care expenses in MICU, find out various cost drivers that contribute to the running cost of MICU and compute the cost per bed. A cost block method of costing was applied in identifying the costs, and the annual cost of services were divided into per month and per day costs. The study found that the construction cost was the major cost drive with 50% contribution to the overall patient care expenses per day. Laboratory costs stood as the second major cost driver with 27% contribution. Running cost and cost per bed were reasonable when compared with the previous studies conducted on similar grounds.