TY  - JOUR
AB  - Purpose– After salary and wages, facility and real estate expenditure are the largest cost items in the semi‐public sector. Especially, for long‐term care facilities, there is high‐saving potential from more efficient and effective use of property. The main purpose of this paper is an exploratory research study in order to analyse the operating costs of long‐term care facilities.Design/methodology/approach– The survey is based on empirical data questionnaires, data generation and semi‐structured interviews at 18 long‐term care facilities in Tyrol, Austria carried out during Summer 2007. In order to determine the volume and to prioritize the cost drivers computer‐aided real‐estate benchmarking software was used, which was developed by the Institute of Real Estate Benchmarking at the University of Applied Sciences KufsteinTirol, Austria. Statistic analyses were conducted to investigate saving potential, determine the best case of the sample and submit recommendations to the decision makers.Findings– The main findings are the investigation and visualization of saving potential of long‐term care facilities and identification of the volume and structure of the cost drivers and illuminated current best practices in effective building upkeep and operating costs of long‐term care facilities in Tyrol. Furthermore, the study reveals the immense saving potential in the costs of various services.Research limitations/implications– This survey is based on the operating costs of long‐term care facilities. Other running costs such as costs for healthcare personnel as well as quality indicators are not considered in this survey. Further research activities will be necessary regarding the identification of these cost drivers by the application of regression models.Practical implications– Professional property management of long‐term care facilities will be shown to decrease the cost share in the healthcare sector. The results should help to establish cost benchmarking increasingly and develop it as a strategic planning tool in order to support management in the healthcare sector in the decision‐making process.Originality/value– The paper presents a new measuring method, which allows an holistic view of three influencing factors, namely the amount of beds, occupancy and the space consumption, to investigate weak points in cost efficiency on one chart.
VL  - 6
IS  - 2
SN  - 1472-5967
DO  - 10.1108/14725960810872668
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1108/14725960810872668
AU  - Madritsch Thomas
AU  - Steixner David
AU  - Ostermann Herwig
AU  - Staudinger Roland
PY  - 2008
Y1  - 2008/01/01
TI  - Operating cost analyses of long‐term care facilities
T2  - Journal of Facilities Management
PB  - Emerald Group Publishing Limited
SP  - 152
EP  - 170
Y2  - 2024/09/19
ER  -