Schön Klinik: Measuring Cost and Value
The case illustrates how a leading German hospital group has invested deeply in the measurement of patient-level outcomes and costs, the foundations of a health care value framework. The company launches a pilot project to use time-driven activity-based costing (TDABC) for measuring the cost of total knee replacements. The costing project complements an existing initiative for comprehensive outcomes measurement. The combination of accurate measurement of outcomes and costs empowers local personnel — physicians, nurses, and administrators — to improve the value of care they deliver. It also permits benchmarking across the group's multiple hospital sites to identify best practices that can be shared. The case concludes with a decision on using outcome and cost measurement to inform the adoption of a new recuperative approach that promises to dramatically lower post-surgical length-of-stays.
Keywords: health care; Costing; Activity-Based Costing; Hospitals; Activity Based Costing and Management; Value; Health Care and Treatment; Outcome or Result; Health Industry; Germany;
Citation:
Kaplan, Robert S., Mary L. Witkowski, and Jessica A. Hohman. "Schön Klinik: Measuring Cost and Value." Harvard Business School Case 112-085, March 2012. (Revised December 2014.) View Details
