Proceedings of 4th Global Business and Finance Research Conference
25 - 27 May 2015, Marriott Hotel, Melbourne, Australia
ISBN: 978-1-922069-76-4
Efficiency Including Quality Output Variable for Greek Public
Hospitals Using Non-Parametric Technique
Panos Xenos1, Nektarios Milton2, Polyzos Nikos3 and Yfantopoulos John4
Policy makers, professional organizations and payers have introduced a
variety of initiatives and reforms for the health systems worldwide, aimed
at improving hospital efficiency. Their efforts are concentrated in two main
categories: to constrain increasing healthcare costs and to enhance
quality of services provided. In OECD countries, hospital expenditures
comprised about 37 per cent of total health expenditures in 2012.
Sustainability of the health system requires that these expenditures will
remain under control without adverse results in the quality of services and
in the level of access of the population to the system. This study analyze
the efficiency of the twenty-eight largest public hospitals for year 2009,
which coincides with the first year of the implementation of the newly
management information system of the Greek Ministry of Health. This is
the first study in Greece to include a quality output variable in the
measurement of hospital efficiency. It was used the non-parametric
technique of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), and a second stage
analysis has been done, to investigate relations between efficiency and
factors such as the geographical region, the type of the hospital, the
population each hospital serves, etc. The results show inefficiency gaps
and spare capacity of the hospital system.
Key words: Hospitals, efficiency, quality, Data Envelopment Analysis, Greek hospital
sector
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1Mr.
Xenos Panos, PhD Candidate, Department of Statistics and Insurance Science, University of Piraeus,
Greece, email: panosonex@hotmail.com, Address: 80 Karaoli and Dimitriou Str PhD Candidate, University
of Piraeus, Greece, tel:+306972952053
2Dr. Nektarios Milton, Associate Professor, Department of Statistics and Insurance Science, University of
Piraeus, Greece
3Dr. Polyzos Nikos, Associate Professor, Department of Social Policy and Management, University of
Thrace, Greece
4Dr. Yfantopoulos John, Professor, Department of Political Science and Public Administration, University of
Athens, Greece