Estimating efficiency and optimal resource utilization in selected hospitals in east of Iran: applying the data envelopment analysis

Objective (s): To determine technical efficiency and its relationship with environmental factors using data envelopment analysis (DEA) in selected hospitals through 2006-2008. The number of active beds and human resources were used as input variables and bed occupancy and outpatient visits were used as outputs. Applying variable return to scale (VRS), the value of technical, managerial and scale efficiency were calculated. The over-utilization of inputs was measured using the estimation of slacks and radial movements. The DEAP-2 was used to measure the efficiency. Over the study period, the mean technical, managerial and scale efficiencies were 0.88, 0.934 and 0.936, respectively. There were 17.66% and 18.72% over-utilization of active beds and human resources during the study period. There was significant association between technical efficiency and type of activity and ownership of hospitals. The results of ANOVA showed that the technical efficiency did not change significantly through 2006-2008. The results showed that there were inefficiencies in hospitals’ performance and it is possible to produce the same outputs with decreasead inputs. Moreover, it seems that environmental factors affect the hospital performance.