The ABC strikes back: finding from surgical field

Because of the rising prevalence of chronic diseases and new syndromes together with technological advancement in enhancing higher value of health care, there is a growing interest in cost reduction in the healthcare field. Cost accounting information has become especially important as a result of the healthcare value theory, which advocates for the delivery of high-value healthcare services at a lower cost. As a result, healthcare organizations are increasingly interested in more sophisticated cost accounting systems, such as Activity Based Costing (ABC), which is better suited for reporting hospital complexity. The purpose of this research is to represent the most recent state of the art on the intellectual structure and growing trends of ABC in the healthcare sector among providers of healthcare services. A bibliometric literature review was conducted to reach this purpose. Scopus was the database that was used. From 1993 through September 2021, English, peer-reviewed articles/reviews and book chapters were considered. The investigation includes two analyses: performance analysis and science mapping. The dataset contains 2041 publications spanning the years 1993 to September 2021. The investigation revealed a 22 percent yearly percentage growth rate in the topic of ABC in the healthcare sector. Geographically, scientific production is separated into two macro-groups: the EU and Anglo-Saxon countries, and Asian countries such as India and China. The most frequent words are associated with cost accounting, performance management, cancer, and surgical themes. According to these findings, several sources is focused to the specific surgical sector, the most structured in terms of operational guidelines and best-practices. The intellectual framework is divided into two sections: one related to cancer therapy and the other to healthcare performance management. The co-word analysis reveals two well-developed and key terms: cost effectiveness and benchmarking. In conclusion the applicability of ABC, and particularly TDABC, to healthcare services appears to be better established in terms of empirical medical evidence, research on how this technique affects the management of organizations and their actors appears to be in an immature and more theoretical stage.