Analysis of the efficiency of hospitals in Castilla y León (Spain)

Abstract

BACKGROUND // The analysis of efficiency represents an area of growing interest in the field of public management. Hospital efficiency depends mainly on the use that the institution makes of its resources and their cost. The importance of hospital efficiency studies is justified by the fact that health spending is the second most important item of public spending. The objective of the present study focused on the analysis of the degree of efficiency with which the public hospitals of Castilla y León were managed.

METHODS // The scope of the research was limited to the 14 hospitals of the Public Health Service of Castilla y León (Sacyl), taking the five-year period 2014-2018 as the study period. For the analysis, the non-parametric technique of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) was used. Both constant returns to scale (CRS) and variable returns to scale (VRS) have been used, calculating the global technical efficiency, pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency for each health institution.

RESULTS // The grouped results showed that the global technical efficiency (GTE) had reached an average of 92.02%, the pure technical efficiency (PTE) 94.10% and the scale efficiency (EE) 97.74%.

CONCLUSIONS // The DEA is presented as a valid technique for analyzing the efficiency of hospitals, with the efficiency of all groups of hospitals (groups I, III and IV) being very similar in terms of PTE, around 97%, with the exception of group II hospitals that are the least efficient.