The productive efficiency of the Turkish health care sector based on provincial panel data

Abstract

Turkey has gone through great changes with "Health Transformation Program" and made a substantial transformation. However, much statistical data have been recorded regarding the practices and behavior of hospitals in Turkey since the implementation of health transformation program. While these records pointed to various problems arising from the reforms, a methodological analysis is rarely found. Based on five years of province level health care data, this paper analyzes the productive efficiency of Turkey's health care sector in the post reform period. Efficiency measures are calculated by a nonparametric approach known as data envelopment analysis. Productivity between the years 2011 and 2015 is measured by the Malmquist index. Furthermore, in order to classify the provinces with the assessment value of 1; the super-efficiency model is applied for further sorting. According to the computed Malmquist index, results show that 51 provinces increased their productivity however 30 provinces decreased their productivity in Turkey's health care sector. On the other hand, by the evaluation of the results, it is seen that the level of economic development and the efficiency performance of hospitals could not necessarily act cooperatively.