Assessment of the Efficiency of Hospitals Affiliated to Hamadan University of Medical Sciences Using Data Envelopment Analysis and Tobit Regression, Hamadan, Iran

Hospitals with high performance and optimal use of resources are among the ultimate goals of healthcare policy makers. The current study aimed at assessing the efficiency of hospitals affiliated to Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Hamadan, Iran, using data envelopment analysis and Tobit regression in 2017.

In the current descriptive study, the statistical population included all hospitals affiliated to Hamedan University of Medical Sciences (n = 15). The required information and statistics were collected from the Deputy of Treatment at the university in two stages using the standard checklist provided by the Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education. The efficiency of data envelopment analysis was assessed in the first stage. The input variables of data envelopment analysis included the number of staff (physicians, paramedics, etc.) and the number of active beds, and the output variables included the number of patients (outpatients and admissions) and the number of surgeries and occupied beds. In the second stage, efficiency as a dependent variable, and hospital size and population were considered as independent variables in Tobit regression. Deep2.1 software was used to estimate the data envelopment analysis and Stata 15 software was used for Tobit regression.

The average technical efficiency of the hospitals was 0.933. The average management efficiency was 0.951, and the average efficiency of the scale was 977.0. Of the total hospitals surveyed, six hospitals had a capacity of < 1, and nine hospitals have an efficiency of 1. Also, hospital size and population size were significant as an environmental variable in Tobit regression.

In hospitals with < 1 efficiency there is a surplus in the number of input variables. It is recommended that the hospitals shift toward maximum efficacy by optimizing the number of staff and active beds