To reduce costs associated with BMTs requires insight into how costs are generated. Methods: Actual costs for all hospital resources used during inpatient care of 19 AUTO BMT pediatric patients were collected retrospectively. Patients were cared for in same hospital by same physician group in FY-1993-95 and discharged alive. Cost data were grouped by cost centers into 8 subsets: Room and Nursing, Pharmacy, Supplies, Laboratory, Radiology, Blood Bank, IV therapy, and Other. ANOVA and linear regression statistics were used for analyses. Results: Total cost for all patients was $2,133,913 with mean (±SD) of $109,855 (±$44,222). There were significant variances between patients in costs (p<.0001). The% of costs attributable to each center and contribution of each to total cost variance are tabulated. Table Conclusions: Targeting fixed costs for Room and Nursing, by reducing lengths of stay, will affect total costs most. Pharmacy, Blood Bank, and Supplies are also major contributors. Pharmacy explains most of variance and probably most amenable to strategies using care algorithms. Although explaining 14% of variance, from cost perspective, there is little yield likely in efforts to reduce use of Laboratory, IV Fluids, Radiology, or Other resources that together account for only 11% of total cost.

Table 1
Full size table