IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/hcarem/v3y2000i4p299-307.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Technical efficiency and economies of diversification in health care

Author

Listed:
  • Diego Prior
  • Magda Solà

Abstract

In national health services, where there is a tendency towards a lack of resources and a continuous increase in demand, it is necessary to implement decisions that promote efficiency. In this paper we focus on potential diversification economies as a strategy to increase efficiency levels. We evaluate the change in efficiency in Catalan hospitals between 1987 and 1992, and analyse the presence of possible diversification economies in each hospital. We use Data Envelopment Analysis, which does not need information on either input or output prices. The results are that the majority of hospitals could increase their efficiency and reduce their costs by diversification to the output-mix offered. Potential productivity gains are between 29% and 46%. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 2000

Suggested Citation

  • Diego Prior & Magda Solà, 2000. "Technical efficiency and economies of diversification in health care," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 3(4), pages 299-307, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:hcarem:v:3:y:2000:i:4:p:299-307
    DOI: 10.1023/A:1019070113893
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1023/A:1019070113893
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1023/A:1019070113893?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 search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Emili Tortosa Ausina & Diego Prior & María Teresa Balaguer-Coll, 2006. "Decentralization And Effiency In Spanish Local Goverment," Working Papers. Serie EC 2006-02, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie).
    2. Diogo Cunha Ferreira & Alexandre Morais Nunes, 2019. "Technical efficiency of Portuguese public hospitals: A comparative analysis across the five regions of Portugal," International Journal of Health Planning and Management, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(1), pages 411-422, January.
    3. Monica Giancotti & Annamaria Guglielmo & Marianna Mauro, 2017. "Efficiency and optimal size of hospitals: Results of a systematic search," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(3), pages 1-40, March.
    4. Ferreira, D.C. & Marques, R.C. & Nunes, A.M., 2018. "Economies of scope in the health sector: The case of Portuguese hospitals," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 266(2), pages 716-735.
    5. Gary Ferrier & Hervé Leleu & James Moises & Vivian Valdmanis, 2013. "The Focus Efficiency of U.S. Hospitals," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 41(3), pages 241-263, September.
    6. Anne Hvenegaard & Jacob Arendt & Andrew Street & Dorte Gyrd-Hansen, 2011. "Exploring the relationship between costs and quality: Does the joint evaluation of costs and quality alter the ranking of Danish hospital departments?," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 12(6), pages 541-551, December.
    7. Pablo Arocena, 2005. "The measurement of scope, scale and diversification economies: How (in)efficient is electricity restructuring and unbundling?," Working Papers 2005/1, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    8. Kittelsen, Sverre A.C. & Magnussen, Jon, 2009. "Economies of scope in Norwegian hospital production - A DEA analysis," HERO Online Working Paper Series 2003:8, University of Oslo, Health Economics Research Programme.
    9. Mydland, Ørjan & Kumbhakar, Subal C. & Lien, Gudbrand & Amundsveen, Roar & Kvile, Hilde Marit, 2020. "Economies of scope and scale in the Norwegian electricity industry," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 39-46.
    10. Kao, Chiang & Pang, Rui-Zhi & Liu, Shiang-Tai & Bai, Xue-Jie, 2021. "Optimal expansion paths for hospitals of different types: Viewpoint of scope economies and evidence from Chinese hospitals," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 289(2), pages 628-638.
    11. Guillem López & Joan Costa-Font & Ivan Planas, 2004. "Diversity and regional inequalities: Assessing the outcomes of the Spanish 'System of Health Care Services'," Working Papers, Research Center on Health and Economics 745, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    12. Pablo Arocena, 2005. "The measurement of scope, scale and diversification economies: How (in)efficient is electricity restructuring and unbundling?," Working Papers 2005/1, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    13. O'Neill, Liam & Rauner, Marion & Heidenberger, Kurt & Kraus, Markus, 2008. "A cross-national comparison and taxonomy of DEA-based hospital efficiency studies," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 158-189, September.
    14. Maria Balaguer-Coll & Diego Prior & Emili Tortosa-Ausina, 2010. "Decentralization and efficiency of local government," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 45(3), pages 571-601, December.
    15. Blank, Jos L. T. & Vogelaar, Iris, 2004. "Specifying technical change: a research on the nature of technical change in Dutch hospital industry," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(3), pages 448-463, July.
    16. Wetzel, Heike & Growitsch, Christian, 2006. "Economies of Scope in European Railways: An Efficiency Analysis," IWH Discussion Papers 5/2006, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).
    17. Shanmugam, Ramalingam & Johnson, Charles, 2007. "At a crossroad of data envelopment and principal component analyses," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 351-364, August.
    18. Kim-Huong Nguyen & Tim Coelli, 2009. "Quantifying the effects of modelling choices on hospital efficiency measures: A meta-regression analysis," CEPA Working Papers Series WP072009, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    19. Arocena, Pablo, 2008. "Cost and quality gains from diversification and vertical integration in the electricity industry: A DEA approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 39-58, January.
    20. Jos L. T. Blank & Bart L. Van Hulst, 2009. "Productive innovations in hospitals: an empirical research on the relation between technology and productivity in the Dutch hospital industry," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(6), pages 665-679, June.

    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:kap:hcarem:v:3:y:2000:i:4:p:299-307. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.