Operational and economic efficiency analysis of public hospitals in Greece

The continuous growth of hospital costs has driven governments in many countries to seek ways to improve their efficiency. In Greece, this has consistently been a major issue for almost two decades, as efficiency assessment and monitoring systems are lacking. In response to this need, the evaluation of the National Health System hospitals’ efficiency level is a precondition for planning, implementing and monitoring any promising reform. In this paper, a non-parametric modeling approach is employed to assess and analyze the efficiency of 87 Greek public hospitals over the period 2005–2009, using data envelopment analysis. The operational and economic aspects of the hospitals’ operation are considered on the basis of their service/case mix and cost structure. We also investigate the efficiency trends over time with the Malmquist index and a second stage regression analysis is performed to explain the operational and economic efficiency results in terms of the hospitals’ operating characteristics and the environment in which they operate.