Direct Hours ....

Direct hours are hours spent working on the completion of the KVI’s.  Direct hours are calculated by subtracting all indirect hours from the worked hours. 

In order to get to "Direct hours" you must first establish time standards for specific procedures. The time standard established is set based on how long a person take to complete a task from start to finish. The remaining paid hours falls into one of the other types of hours of Indirect or Benefits.  The IMS system calculates the direct hours and uses it to calculate the cost centers performance.

Budget Direct Hours are calculated by the budgeting module in the IMS system based on the cost centers budgeted volume, standards, and performance expectations.

Actual Direct Available Hours are calculated by taking Total paid hours and subtracting the total of all Indirect and Benefit hours.

Example: Cost Center XYZ

The remaining 260 Direct hours represents the total hours available in the cost center to provide patient care, or complete procedures. These hours are used along with required hours to calculate the cost centers performance percentage.

Required Hours are the total hours (including budgeted indirect standard hours) needed to complete the actual KVIs produced in the cost center for the period.  Required hours are calculated differently for based on the cost center type:

Direct cost center with Multiple time standards

Examples of these types are cost centers include: Radiology, Lab’s, Pharmacy, GI lab, Cardiology, Respiratory and Therapy cost centers.

In this type of cost center time studies have been conducted and specific times have been assigned to each procedure. This standard is referred to as a direct standard.  In some cost centers an overall indirect standard per KVI may be developed in conjunction with the direct standards.  The indirect standard represents like tasks that are completed for each procedure regardless of the type of procedure.  An example of this is the Surgical Suite where pre-operative functions, suite preparation, etc. are required before any surgery can be done.  The standard is multiplied by the total KVI and added to the direct standard required hours.

Direct cost center with a Budgeted time standards

Examples of these types of cost centers include: Inpatient nursing units, dietary, environmental services and engineering.

In this type of cost center a budgeted standard is developed from the fiscal year budget. This is calculated by determing the budget direct hours and dividing by the total budgeted kvis.  This number represents the average number of care giver hours that have been budgeted to complete one KVI.