A study of cost accounting system design in the university hospitals

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to reveal the design of cost accounting system for university hospitals in Japan. Interviews were conducted with 10 university hospitals in 2012.

According to this study, university hospitals generally construct cost accounting system which can calculate departmental cost. Cost accounting data inconsistencies attributed to variations of accessible data units possibly fail to satisfy administrator's objectives. The results also suggest that additional cooperation with related systems and reforming complex operation are important.

This study shows that cost accounting in university hospitals reasonably maintain overall accuracies；on the other hand, system needs to be improved in terms of information and operation system design.