A research on the challenges faced and using areas in cost analysis in hospital operations

Hospital operations have to offer health services at the most appropriate time with the lowest cost without compromising health service quality. In hospital operations, it is important that the cost of services produced has been analyzed correctly and that these have been used in strategic decisions of managers. Nowadays, some problems have been encountered in cost management and cost analysis applications in hospital operations. The pupose of the study is to provide useful information to hospital managers by determining which techniques have been used and what kind of difficulties have been encountered in performing cost analysis applications in hospital operations. For this purpose, research data have been obteined by using a questionnare prepared for senior executives who work for private hospitals, the Ministry of Health hospitals, university hospitals and city hospitals operating in Turkey. In the study, no sample selection has been made. It has been tried to be reached the financial managers of the hospitals operating in Turkey. The data obtained from the research have been analyzed by using SPSS 22.0 package program. As a result of the analysis performed, it has been reached findings which related descriptive statistics (frequency, percentage, etc.) and hypothesis tests (Independent samples t test, ANOVA, Correlation, etc.). When these findings have been studied it has been seen that in 48'1% of the Ministry of Health hospitals have not been carried out a cost analysis, cost analysis has been caried out in the medical / accounting department in 49% of private hospitals and 50% of city hospitals and cost analysis has been caried out in the finance department in 46.8% of university hospitals. Moreover, it has been seen that the most common difficulty level encountered is about determining the profit /loss of the hospitals with 43.8% and the cost analysis carried out in the hospitals as the usage area of the cost analysis is about quite complicated and variable in the health services with 34.6%. Accordingly, it has been determined that hospital managers do not give importance to cost analysis and do not benefit from cost information adequately. Keywords: Hospital Operations, Cost Analysis, Cost and Management Accounting.