Inefficiency in Austrian inpatient care: identifying ailing providers based on DEA results

Based on an analysis of the development of efficiency in acute care hospitals and rehabilitation clinics in Austria, the main objective of this study is to investigate the impact of ownership and patient related characteristics on this development. Applying standard Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) techniques, we examine input-oriented efficiency in the period from 1997 to 2000. To do this, we define different categories of medical and non-medical personnel (in full-time equivalents), expenditure on current supplies and investment as input components in order to run four models with case rates, patient days, cases and cases plus patient days as the respective output components.