Determining the Technical Efficiency of Hospitals in West Azerbaijan Province Using Data Envelopment Analysis Publisher



Babaei M ; Moghaddasi F ; Yusefzadeh H ; Aghazadeh JM ; Yousefi Y ; Sheikhychaman M
Source: Payesh Published:2025

Abstract

Objective(s): Hospitals, as the largest and most expensive operational units of the health system, hold significant importance. Efficiency can be a measure of performance and resource productivity in these centers. This study aimed to evaluate the technical efficiency of hospitals in West Azerbaijan Province using the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method. Methods: This descriptive and cross-sectional research measured the efficiency of all hospitals in West Azerbaijan Province over the period from 2018 to 2021. The necessary data for this period were collected using a checklist from the Statistics and Health Information Technology Unit of the Deputy of Treatment at the University of Medical Sciences of the province. To calculate the technical efficiency of hospitals, input-oriented DEA with variable returns to scale was employed. Input variables included the number of doctors, nursing staff, other personnel, and active beds, while output variables comprised the number of outpatient visits, discharges, bed occupancy rate, and number of surgeries. The analysis was performed using Deap 2.1 software. Results: The average technical, managerial, and scale efficiency of the hospitals under study were 0.859, 0.956, and 0.899, respectively. On average, there was a 14% potential for improving technical efficiency. The study also indicated that with the same production factors, particularly the inputs of doctors and nurses, the efficiency of the healthcare centers in the border province of West Azerbaijan could be significantly enhanced through managerial and economic planning, thereby making their outputs more productive for the equitable benefit of the population from health services. Conclusion: Hospitals with lower efficiency can increase their efficiency by benchmarking against efficient and reference hospitals. University and hospital managers can take appropriate steps toward increasing the efficiency of the studied hospitals by reallocating surplus human resources among different healthcare centers and employing qualified managers with relevant education in health sciences management. © 2025, Iranian Institute for Health Sciences Research. All rights reserved.