Analyzing the Efficiencies of Hospitals: An Application of Data Envelopment Analysis

Abstract

The aim of this study is to investigate the efficiencies of hospitals in Turkey with respect to their ownerships (i.e. state, education & research, university and private) for the years 2001 to 2006. The impact of health care reforms on the efficiencies is also examined in order to highlight possible policy implications for policy makers. Comparative performance evaluation of hospitals has been achieved by using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) as well as Malmquist Index calculations (i.e. to determine the direction and degree of yearly changes in performance), super efficiency analysis and slack evaluations. According to the findings, hospital ownership significantly influences hospital efficiencies. The influence of health care reforms on hospital efficiency has been observed especially for the state and private hospitals. The average efficiencies of state hospitals remarkably increase while the average efficiencies of private hospitals decrease especially after the starting of reforms in the stateowned hospitals. This paper adds value to the current body of research by addressing the impact of hospital ownerships and health care reforms to the efficiencies of Turkish hospitals. There are similar studies of Data Envelopment Analysis applied for hospitals in several other countries. Researchers may compare the results of this study with the findings of other studies.

Comprehensive Efficiency Assessment of Turkish Teaching Hospitals: Technical, Pure Technical and Scale Efficiencies with Data Envelopment Analysis

“…Turkish researchers, with a similar tendency, carried out several DEA based efficiency studies in hospital services area. For instance, Ersoy et al (1997) firstly used DEA to measure efficiency of Turkish hospitals, Sezen & Gok (2011) assessed the efficiencies of Turkish hospitals regarding their ownership. Özgen Narcı et al (2015) studied the impact of competition on technical efficiency for the hospital industry.…”

Performance Through Efficiency in the Public Healthcare System – A DEA Approach in an Emergent Country

“…In this context, Gok and Sezen (2011) state that one crucial way to increase the efficiency of the Turkish hospitals is by decreasing investments in the health field and/or increasing the production factors, such as the existing beds or physicians (Rezapoor et al, 2011). Moreover, Araújo and his colleagues (2014) argue that high investments in equipment and resources required to treat the patients can generate hospitals' inefficiency.…”

Efficiency of Iranian Hospitals before and after Health Sector Evolution Plan: A systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Study

“…The results indicated that technical, managerial and scale e ciency of Iran hospitals after performing HSEP have decreased in comparison with before it. On the basis of a study on Turkey hospitals from 2001-2006, which measured the effect of Turkey health sector reform on hospitals e ciency to provide policy implications for policy makers, indicated that this reform has increased the e ciency of public hospitals but the e ciency of private hospitals has decreased [31].…”