STUDYING THE EFFICIENCY OF HOSPITALS IN THE RIYADH REGION OF SAUDI ARABIA USING DATA ENVELOPMENT ANALYSIS (DEA): A CONCEPTUAL APPROACH

Abstract

Background: Measuring efficiency is a cornerstone of the health care system in terms of evaluating individual performance of production units such as health care centre and hospital. It creates the logical frame for the allocation of resources within and between the health care entities. Despite the growing importance in assessing efficiency in the health care sector, significant ambiguity occurs about whether the approaches are appropriate be applied on health care facilities. The prime focus of this manuscript is to discuss how technical efficiency of hospitals in Saudi Arabia can be measured using the one stage DEA model.

Conceptual approach: The importance of measuring technical efficiency of hospital originates from its flexibility to compare hospitals in terms of actual utilization of inputs and outputs rather than costs or profits. Furthermore, the technical efficiency examines how well the process of production transforms inputs to outputs or its effective execution of production strategy. Thus, the DEA) is the most common method for measuring hospitals' efficiency. It is important for the researcher, student, and health care manger to deeply understand the suitable methodology for DEA when evaluating the efficiency of a health care facility.

Conclusion: The understanding of conceptual approaches towards studying the efficiency of hospitals using the DEA model could encourage and motivate the researchers, students, hospitals managers and policy makers to evaluate the technical efficiency of hospitals among Saudi Arabia and allow the determination if available resources are utilized optimally.

Keywords: Conceptual approach, technical efficiency, DEA, hospitals, Saudi Arabia.