Cost and expenditure of high-cost consumables in hospital: A study in a large hospital in Shiraz during 2017-2018

The present research aimed at investigating the optimum use of resources in hospitals by estimating and comparing the utilization and cost of consumables in a large hospital in Iran during 2017-2018. The data were collected from the accrual accounting system, store invoices and executive management department. Descriptive statistics were performed. Excel was used for data analysis. Syringe and surgical gas had the highest and lowest cost items, respectively, among the hospital consumables. Surgical gas had also the greatest growth of consumables cost from 2017 to 2018 (114%). Emergency department and ICU had the highest consumption among hospital departments. Moreover, greatest increases in consumable costs were observed in laboratory (258%), and osteology (72%) and digestion (72%) departments. The findings also showed that although utilization of most of consumables had a decreasing trend, their cost increased (overall 45%) The high rate of general inflation, lack of utilization plan for consumables, and lack of supervision and monitoring system on resource consumption are among the reasons for the increasing trend of resource cost. Two last issues can be addressed by hospital administrators in order to control consumables cost.