Staff Perspective and Hospital Finance Experts on How to Manage the Costs of the Hospital: A Qualitative Study

Background and Objectives: Cost management is one of the most important goals of organizations toward achieving high-quality services in a competitive environment and customer satisfaction, But this goal makes big challenges for the managers of organizations. The aim of the study was to identify an appropriate approach for cost management in hospitals.

Material and Methods: This study was a qualitative research based on the phenomenological method. The sampling was done by a purposeful manner. The cooperation between authorities and experts was conducted to manage the cost and finance of the Tohid hospital in Bushehr province. The data collection tool was a deep interview with open questions, and the data analysis was made based on the Allan & Jason method. Validation and truth-worthiness were performed by the method of credibility, transformability, reliability and confirmability.

Results: The costs management of the hospital was appeared in 30 sub-themes and 7 themes. The themes included: identification of cost centers - setting cost managements internal rules and regulations - monitoring and control - establishing a costing system - formation of task force operational planning.

Conclusion: Cost management in hospitals is formed by identifying costly cells, starting with implementation of cultivation programs in consumption and saving and reporting procedures and providing control and monitoring programs on the top management of the hospital's top management.