Cost accounting in the EDP-supported chemical laboratory

Introduction In 1978, cost accounting was made compulsory by law for all Austrian public hospitals [1]. Cost accounting at the Chemical Central Laboratory of the Landeskrankenstalten in Salzburg follows the procedures suggested by the law; it is done by the hospital's administration with the help of electronic data-processing (EDP). The hospital is a teaching hospital with 1600 beds; in addition, there are 700 beds in an affiliated hospital for the mentally ill. The central laboratory carries out all tests requested on blood, urine and other body fluids; the emergency laboratory is part of the central laboratory. Other hospital departments perform haematology, blood group, bacteriology and histology tests. The central laboratory is staffed by three medical doctors, two chemists and 20 technicians. Three types of cost accounting are performed by the administration: an analysis of kinds of costs; an analysis of cost centres; and an analysis of bearers of costs. The analysis of kinds of costs covers all the hospital's 'costs divided into eight groups. The left-hand side of table shows the result of the 1979 analysis. It can be seen that personnel costs amount to 58% of the total and the costs for the annual rate of depreciation of buildings and equipment amount to some 11.5% of the total costs. (NB. All costs are in 'cost points', which do not refer to any particular currency.) The central laboratory's costs are presented in the right-hand side of table 1. The laboratory is responsible for 2.91% of the costs of the hospital. Only 38?/o of the costs of the central laboratory are personnel costs: this is small and a result of mechanization and EDP support. The hospital is divided into 262 cost centres. In the central laboratory there are 10 cost centrs, eight of which are related to functional sections of the laboratory. All direct costs are charged to these cost centres. Indirect costs are collected from two other cost centres and these are distributed amongst the eight main cost centres according to a special ratio. The ratio takes into account the number of tests and the number of technicians at specific cost centres. These indirect costs are called 'inside overhead costs' and they are booked under cost number 14 (table 1). Indirect costs with which the central laboratory is charged by the hospital are labelled 'outside overhead costs', with the cost numbers 11-13 (table 1). This is the third type of …