What Does It Cost to Prevent On-Duty Firefighter Cardiac Events? A Content Valid Method for Calculating Costs
Table 2
Detailed description (example application) of the method for cost calculation.
The summation of direct cost components (Formula 1) can be used as a crude formula for calculating direct cost, unadjusted for total months. Formula 1: . Where IC: investment costs, OTC: orientation and training costs, MPC: medical and pharmaceutical costs, ECE: educational and continuing education costs, and MC: maintenance costs.
Formula 2 can be used to calculate time-adjusted direct cost biannually and annually. Formula 2:
Where is the specified sum of months (i.e., 6 months, 12 months)
Formula 3 excludes investment direct costs [ ] unique to the first year of program adoption and implementation and is adjusted for biannual and annual calculations. Formula 3:
For each component (IC, OTC, MPC, ECE, and MC), the direct costs may be found in administrative expense records. Quantifying indirect costs requires additional calculations where the hourly wage (or hourly equivalent for salaried personnel) is multiplied by the hours of the employees that devoted time to one or more components of the program. For example, a fire chief may document 20 total hours of his/her time to the OTC component during the third month of program implementation. To calculate indirect costs, the chief’s hourly wage is needed. With an annual salary of $75,000, the chief’s hourly wage would equal $41.21 dollars based on the definition of a full-time equivalent workweek of ≥35 hours per week
$41.21 per hr = ($75,000.00 annual salary)/(35 hrs per wk (52 weeks per year) = 1,820 hrs)].
With these data, the estimated total indirect costs for OTC in month 3 would be $824.20.
The example above should be replicated for all staff members that engage in activities or tasks linked to any of the six components of program costs (See Table 1). In other words, quantifying indirect costs should not be limited to administrative personnel and should include line-staff workers (front-line workers) who devote time to the program. Failure to consider these indirect costs would produce an underestimation of total program costs to the department/agency.
Formula 4 is an example calculation model for quantifying indirect costs linked to time devoted to orientation and training. Formula 4: []. Where OTCID indicates “indirect costs” and is the product of hours of work devoted to OTC and hourly wage summed for all staff members that devoted time to OTC related activities and tasks.
Formula 5 can be used to quantify the total cost of the program adjusted for time, direct, and indirect costs. Formula 5:
Where is the total program cost adjusted for time, direct, and indirect costs. Investment costs should be included for the first year calculation but removed in subsequent years.
