The efficiency of Thaiûs psychiatric hospitals by data envelopment analysis technique (DEA)

Abstract

Objective To identify the efficiency of 13 adult psychiatric hospitals under the Mental Health Department.

Materials and methods This retrospective research paper was collected data from the budget year 2008 consisting 5 input factors (personnel costs, operating cost from government budget, operating costs from hospital profit, number of beds, and number of hospitalofficials) and 4 output factors (number of outpatients, number of inpatients, length of stay, and a mean of relative weight of Diagnosis Related Group showing the complexity level of treatment of each particular patient). Then these input and output data were analyzed by using
data envelopment analysis (DEA) technique.

Results The results, by constant return to scale (CRS) showed that 9 out of 13 hospitals were on the overall efficiency frontier having an average CRS of 0.954. Variable return to scale (VRS) showed that there were 11 hospitals on the technical efficiency frontier with an average VRS of 0.972.

Conclusion There were 9 psychiatric hospitals having high overall efficiency and 11 psychiatric hospitals having high technical efficiency. However, there were some limitations in some specific areas in psychiatric hospitals.