| Article ID: | iaor1998248 |
| Country: | Spain |
| Volume: | 67 |
| Issue: | 6 |
| Start Page Number: | 455 |
| End Page Number: | 464 |
| Publication Date: | Nov 1993 |
| Journal: | Revue Sanida e Higeana Publica (Madrid) |
| Authors: | Alvarez-Ossorio Garcia de Soria M.R., Figueroa Murillo E., Cordoba Dona J.A., Lopez Fernandez F.J. |
| Keywords: | statistics: data envelopment analysis |
BACKGROUND: The evaluation of hospital units' efficiency is a major concern of health services management. Among the techniques that exist to measure efficiency, the method of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) can be used where there are multiple resources units (inputs) obtaining multiple products (outputs). The objective of this study is the evaluation of Hospital Preventive Medicine Services in Andalucia, Spain, using the technique of DEA. METHODS: The Preventive Medicine Services from seven hospitals of Andalucia were selected. DEA is a technique, based on linear programming, which finds the weights that make one Service efficient in relation to the rest. The relative efficiency of the seven units was calculated. The unit with the best practice was found by means of cross efficiency matrices. With regard to the inefficient services, it was possible to identify ways of increasing activities to achieve efficiency. RESULTS: Two efficiency assumptions were used. In the first one, four services were efficient (Efficiency = 1) in relation to the rest. In the second one, the Service S.1 was inefficient. Among the efficient units, S.2 showed the highest average efficiency in both assumptions and appeared as the reference unit for all the inefficient ones. CONCLUSIONS: In the evaluation of this sample of preventive Medicine Services' efficiency, at least three of them showed some kind of inefficiency. The Service S.2 was the point of reference for inputs and outputs selected.