Models for costing patient care services. Part 1: Costing diagnostic laboratory services.

Clinical Information Systems that link resource use to clinical decision making are a necessary tool for effective hospital management. This article describes the cost finding research undertaken to develop a model for costing laboratory tests. The method separately calculates direct labour and direct consumable costs and apportions indirect labour, indirect consumable costs and hospital and department overhead costs to each test in each accounting period. The costing model has been computerised as part of the Queen Victoria Medical Centre's Clinical Information System.