Using parametric methods in hospital efficiency measurement: a case study in hospitals affiliated to social security and welfare ministry

Health Sector is considered as one of the most important service subsystems and at the same time a segment of social security and development indices. Among this، hospitals are mentioned as the greatest and most costly operational unit of health sector that need to apply economical and performance analysis to access optimal use of facilities and resources. This study is conducted to assess the efficiency in general hospitals of Social Security Organization (SSO)، Iran. This is a cross sectional study that was conducted between 2006 to 2007 in the field by applying library resources. In order to assess the efficiency with Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA)، Frontier version 4. 1 was acquired. Results show that the average mean of efficiency in these hospitals was 0. 834 by deviation of 0. 55 to 0. 947. Furthermore in non of the studied years، these hospitals could achieve the total technical efficiency level (TE=1). It seems that applying parametric and nonparametric techniques together can lead to better illustration of the recent situation and present the efficient burden of hospital services in our health sector. In addition، employing experienced managers and evaluating the proper number of staff in each hospital parts along with extra attention to the results of economical and performance analysis can lead to fully employment of inputs and increase our hospitals production.