Measuring the efficiency among secondary and university pulmonary hospital clinics in Greece

Abstract

Background: The need for efficient use of healthcare resources intensifies in times of economic recession and budgetary constraints. AIM: The scope of this study is to measure the efficiency among secondary and university pulmonary clinics operating in two public hospitals located in different geographical regions in Greece. Material & Methods: The method of analysis used is the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). Efficiency models were developed using as inputs the medical and nursing staff and the number of beds in use, and as outputs the number of visits to outpatient clinics, the number of patients and the hospitalisation days, in 2012. Results: The comparative analysis of the university clinics in the two hospitals indicated that both are operating fully efficiently. Out of the 11 secondary clinics, nine (9) showed a positive efficiency, out of which seven (7) were fully efficient achieving the maximum score. Regarding the comparison of all pulmonary secondary and university clinics, positive results were observed, with seven (7) out of the thirteen (13) clinics achieving efficient scores. Out of these, four (4) clinics, three in the secondary hospital of the 1st region and one in the university hospital of the 2nd region were fully efficient, scoring is 1.00. Conclusions: Ensuring efficiency gains with evidence-based studies from the hospitals' or/and clinics' perspective, using technical performance measurement tools such as DEA, is contributing to a better assessment of health systems performance.