How to Calculate the Cost of Supplies for a Hospital Unit

The cost of materials management can eat up 35 percent of your hospital's budget. The cost of supplies alone can make up 20 to 25 percent of the budget. If you are charged with determining the cost of supplies for a hospital unit, you will need to work with other departments to gather all the cost information you need to create accurate data.

Instructions

• 1

  Hospital supplies, such as bandages and bedpans, can be measured in a cost per item. But to understand your real cost, you will need to factor in your staff charges. Determine your transport, stocking and restocking staff costs, then add this overhead to the cost of the supplies used.

• 2

  Much like any business, floor space in a hospital is costly. In addition to staff, you need to factor in the cost per square foot to store your unit's items. This information is usually available from the hospital's operations department. Add this cost to supplies your unit actually uses. This will provide a more realistic price, which results in a more accurate picture of the cost of stocking a unit.

• 3

  The cost of the actual supplies used in your unit can be tracked by looking at charge item data on your hospital's computer systems. This will give you an idea of the amount of supplies consumed on an average day in your unit. Once you begin to track this, you will be able to determine which supplies are used most frequently and in the greatest volume. Add the actual supply charge to the staff and storage figures to get an accurate idea of how much unit supplies actually cost.