The Application of Data Envelopment Analysis in Healthcare Performance Evaluation of Rehabilitation Departments in Hungary

Abstract

Purpose: Performance evaluation is a general problem both in production and service systems. Generally, operation performance is determined based on input resource utilization and on outputs related data. Performance evaluation is especially complicated when both financial and nonfinancial indicators must be considered in the evaluation of the efficiency of healthcare system. The purpose of this paper is to apply data envelopment analysis (DEA) in order to measure the efficiency of rehabilitation departments curing musculoskeletal diseases. Methodology/Approach: The evaluation of the efficiency of rehabilitation departments includes several parameters. Performance evaluation becomes complicated when several evaluation criteria must be taken into consideration at the same time. In these cases, scoring methods are generally used, which transform performance data into a common scale and an aggregate score is calculated with subjective weights. Using DEA the subjective element of evaluation is eliminated when the weights of inputs and outputs are determined. Findings: The applied DEA model evaluates the performance of rehabilitation departments. The presented analysis highlights the differences between the efficiency of the studied departments, and explores inefficiencies related to economies of scale. The slack values directly show the operational shortcomings in specific areas, and indicate the exact amount of the required changes. Research Limitation/implication: The applied DEA model evaluates the performance of rehabilitation departments. The presented analysis highlights the differences between the efficiency of the studied departments, and explores inefficiencies related to economies of scale. The slack values directly show the operational shortcomings in specific areas, and indicate the exact amount of the required changes. Originality/Value of paper: The originality of the paper lies on the identification of inputs and outputs for the applied DEA model as only nonfinancial indicators were taken into consideration. The analysis involves all rehabilitation departments of the Hungarian healthcare system; consequently, conclusions related to the general state of this area can be drawn.

Keywords

• data envelopment analysis
• healthcare
• system efficiency
• musculoskeletal diseases