The Measurement of Technical Efficiency in Public-Hospital Operation under the Ministry of Public Health, Chiang Mai Province

Abstract

Budget allocation for health services from the central government must be done on the principle of equality and with efficiency. Likewise, all hospitals with the allocated budgets need to manage the budgets efficiently in order to make the utmost use of them. It is, therefore, essential that all government sectors and hospitals (under the Ministry of Public Health) understand the tools and the various efficiency indicators and can apply them in their management. This research aimed to (1) study the operational efficiency of government hospitals under the Ministry of Public Health, Chiang Mai province (2) study the factors that influence the inefficiency of government hospitals under the Ministry of Public Health, Chiang Mai province. The
input variables included the amount of medical personnel and budget and the output variable consisted of service quantity of the hospital. The secondary data during the period of 2014 – 2018 were used and analyzed by using the Data Envelopment Analysis: [DEA] technique. The study found that factors affecting hospital efficiency were size of the hospital that was sufficient for the number of patients and the full occupancy rate. In the other hand, the factors that affected the inefficiency of the hospital namely medical personnel. The increasing in the number of patients and the ratio of doctors and medical personnel reduced overall efficiency of the hospitals. Because the hospital was considered as a service organization, personnel working in hospitals were key driven factors for organizational efficiency improvement.