Time‐Driven Activity‐Based Costing (TDABC) in Otolaryngology: A Scoping Review
Bibliographic record
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: Accurately measuring the cost of a clinical process is critical to identifying ways to increase the value of a healthcare process. The objective of this study was to review time-driven activity-based costing (TDABC) in otolaryngology and to illustrate areas where value may be increased. DATA SOURCES: PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, CINAHL Complete, and Business Source Complete from database inception to August 2024. REVIEW METHODS: In accordance with Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses extension for Scoping Reviews guidelines, peer-reviewed full-length articles analyzing an otolaryngology care process with TDABC were included. Data collected included study characteristics, objectives, method of process mapping and costing, key study findings, subspecialty focus, and limitations. RESULTS: Nine were included in the final review. Subspecialties consisted of pediatric otolaryngology (N = 4), head and neck surgery (N = 3), and rhinology (N = 2). The primary study aims were to reduce waste (N = 4), quantify cost (N = 4), evaluate the impact of a new intervention (N = 3), and identify quality improvement opportunities (N = 3). Most articles used input from involved personnel and/or direct observation to create process maps and reviewed institutional and/or public records to obtain cost information. TDABC was primarily used to study outpatient clinics or surgeries. Common limitations included limited generalizability, susceptibility to biases, and incomplete information. CONCLUSION: This scoping review demonstrated that TDABC can be a powerful and versatile tool for costing and identifying opportunities to increase the value of a care process in otolaryngology. Future costing studies can use TDABC to analyze care pathways in understudied otolaryngology subspecialties.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.032 | 0.150 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.004 | 0.008 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.016 | 0.022 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.006 | 0.006 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".