The impact of policy on hospital productivity: a time series analysis of Dutch hospitals

The health care industry, in particular the hospital industry, is under an increasing degree of pressure, by an ageing population, advancing expensive medical technology a shrinking labor. The pressure on hospitals is further increased by the planned budget cuts in public spending by many current administrations as a result of the economic and financial crises. However, productivity increases may alleviate these problems. Therefore we study whether productivity in the hospital sector is growing, and whether this productivity growth can be influenced by government policy. Using an econometric time series analysis of the hospital sector in the Netherlands, productivity is estimated for the period 1972–2010. Then, productivity is linked to the different regulation regimes during that period, ranging from output funding in the 1970s to the current liberalized hospital market. The results indicate that the average productivity of the hospital sector in different periods differs and that these differences are related to the structure of regulation in those periods.