Cost of nursing most frequent procedures performed on severely burned patients.

OBJECTIVE

to identify the mean direct cost (MDC) of the most frequent procedures performed by nursing professionals on severely burned patients in an Intensive Care Unit.

METHOD: exploratory-descriptive quantitative single-case study. The MDC was calculated by multiplying time (timed) spent by nursing professionals in the performance of the procedures by the unit cost of direct labor, and adding the costs of material and medicine/solutions.

RESULTS

a MDC of US$ 0.65 (SD=0.36) was obtained for "vital signs monitoring"; US$ 10.00 (SD=24.23) for "intravenous drug administration"; US$ 5.90 (SD=2.75) for "measurement of diuresis"; US$ 0.93 (SD=0.42) for "capillary blood glucose monitoring"; and US$ 99.75 (SD=129.55) for "bandaging".

CONCLUSION

the knowledge developed can support managerial decision-making, contribute to the efficiency distribution of the resources involved and, when possible, provide cost-containment or cost-minimization strategies without impairing the quality of nursing care.