Hospital Practices and Research

Do Hospitals Affiliated With the Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences Perform Efficiently? Non-parametric Data Envelopment Analysis

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Satar Rezaei 1
Nooredin Dopeykar 2
Mohsen Barouni 3
Mohammad Jafari 4
Fardin Gharibi 5

1 Research Center for Environmental Determinants of Health, Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, Kermanshah, Iran

2 Najmiyeh Hospital, Baqiyatallah University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

3 Health Services Management Research Center, Institute for Futures Studies in Health, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran

4 Iranian Health Insurance, Kerman, Iran

5 Vice Chancellor for Research Affairs, Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences, Sanandaj, Iran

https://doi.org/10.21859/hpr-0104135
Abstract
Background: One way to improve the performance of hospitals, the largest resource-consuming units in the healthcare sector, is to continuously evaluate their performance.
Objective: The current study assessed the performance of hospitals affiliated with the Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences using data envelopment analysis (DEA).
Methods: This retrospective descriptive-analytic study used DEA to assess efficiency types (technical, managerial, and scale) in hospitals of the Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences (n = 12) in the years 2007 to 2011. The number of active beds, nurses, physicians (general and specialist), and other staff were inputs; inpatient admission and occupied bed days were outputs. Stata version 12 was used for data analysis.
Results: The mean technical, scale, and managerial efficiency values were 0.85, 0.89, and 0.95, respectively. The highest and lowest slack inputs were nurses and active beds, respectively.
Conclusion: The findings indicate that Kurdistan hospitals were less than appropriately efficient during the studied period. They also suggest that there is a capacity of about 15% for enhancing output in hospitals (compared with the most efficient studied hospitals) without increasing costs or inputs.

Keywords

Data Envelopment Analysis
Efficiency
Hospitals performance
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Hospital Practices and Research
Volume 1, Issue 4 - Serial Number 4
Autumn 2016
Pages 135-140

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