IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/soceps/v101y2025ics0038012125001387.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Forecasting the Portuguese public hospitals performance: An impossible task?

Author

Listed:
  • Varela, Miguel

Abstract

This study has two main objectives: first, to evaluate the performance of public hospitals in Portugal and, second, to predict their development Utilizing Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and the Malmquist Productivity Index (MPI), this study predicts and evaluates the performance of public hospitals in Portugal. From 2013 to 2017, a sample of 28 public hospitals and hospital centers was analyzed. In 2018, projected MPI values were compared to actual values. The data used are those officially available at the time. The objective was also to delimit the time of the present research so that in a future study it will be possible to compare it with the period of the COVID pandemic. In this research, pre-COVID data are worked on and in a future publication, when official data are available for a period of five years post-COVID, we can compare the results obtained. The average DEA score for hospitals has been 0.648, and the score under variable returns to scale is 0.764, indicating a gradual improvement in performance. Over the years, both hospital and scale efficiency have increased. There is seasonality in the overall average MPI, with significant peaks in May and June. The study indicates that technological advancements have a greater impact on the MPI than changes in efficiency. The projected MPI indicates a marginal uptick for the year 2018, although the outcomes lack sufficient reliability.

Suggested Citation

  • Varela, Miguel, 2025. "Forecasting the Portuguese public hospitals performance: An impossible task?," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:soceps:v:101:y:2025:i:c:s0038012125001387
    DOI: 10.1016/j.seps.2025.102289
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0038012125001387
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.seps.2025.102289?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:soceps:v:101:y:2025:i:c:s0038012125001387. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/seps .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.