Productivity changes in Benin zone hospitals: A nonparametric Malmquist approach

Abstract

Background: To date no study Ben has attempted to determine whether hospitals the country are technically efficient and whether there has been productivity growth the hospital sector as a result of the various health sector reforms undertaken the recent past. The objectives of this study were to measure the technical and scale efficiency of hospitals Ben and to assess the changes productivity over five years (2003 2007) with a view to analys g the source of change. Methods: DEAP software was used to analyse the technical efficiency and productivity growth among a sample of 23 zonal hospitals the Republic of Ben over a period of five years from 2003 to 2007. Results: The yearly analysis revealed that 20 (87 per cent), 20 (87 per cent), 14 (61 per cent), 12 (52 per cent), and 8 (35 per cent) of the hospitals were run efficiently 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007 respectively and they needed to either crease their outputs (or reduce their puts) order to become efficient. The average variable returns to scale technical efficiency scores were 63 per cent, 64 per cent, 78 per cent, 78 per cent, and 86 per cent respectively dur g the years under consideration. On average, the productivity of hospitals decreased by 5.3 per cent over the five year period. The productivity decl e was largely attributed to technical regress. Whereas the relative efficiency of the hospitals be g assessed creased by 25.3 per cent, technical change ( novation) regressed by 24.4 per cent per annum. Conclusion: There is some scope for provid g outpatient curative and preventive care and patient care to extra patients without additional vestment to the above mentioned health services. This would entail leverag g of health promotion approaches and lower g of f ancial barriers to access to boost the consumption of underutilised health services, especially health promotion and disease prevention services.