IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/mul/je8794/doi10.1429-102931y2021i2p187-214.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Potential efficiency gains and expenditure savings in the Italian Regional Healthcare Systems

Author

Listed:
  • Dino Rizzi
  • Michele Zanette

Abstract

The paper aims to analyse the extent to which the adoption of best practice policies could improve the efficiency of Italian Regional Healthcare Systems (RHSs) and reduce public healthcare expenditures. By means of a stochastic frontier model we estimate the RHSs’ technical inefficiency and its determinants using a panel data of 16 regions over the period 2010-2016. We use the Essential Levels of Care (LEA) scores computed by the Ministry of Health as a proxy for the RHSs’ output and public healthcare expenditure as the main input. The level of inefficiency is a function of a set of variables summarising the organisational arrangements implemented by RHS policymakers. The results allow us to identify the bestpractice policy, defined as the set of observable organisational arrangements that maximises aggregate efficiency. Adoption of the best-practice policy by all RHSs leads to potential efficiency gains of 1.5% on average (from 93.4% to 94.9%) and to potential healthcare expenditure savings of 1.8 billion euro in 2016 (1.77% of current expenditures).

Suggested Citation

  • Dino Rizzi & Michele Zanette, 2021. "Potential efficiency gains and expenditure savings in the Italian Regional Healthcare Systems," Politica economica, Società editrice il Mulino, issue 2, pages 187-214.
    • Handle: RePEc:mul:je8794:doi:10.1429/102931:y:2021:i:2:p:187-214
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.rivisteweb.it/download/article/10.1429/102931
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://www.rivisteweb.it/doi/10.1429/102931
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sharon Hadad & Yossi Hadad & Tzahit Simon-Tuval, 2013. "Determinants of healthcare system’s efficiency in OECD countries," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 14(2), pages 253-265, April.
    2. Pablo Cos & Enrique Moral-Benito, 2014. "Determinants of health-system efficiency: evidence from OECD countries," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 69-93, March.
    3. Bonasia, Mariangela & Kounetas, Konstantinos & Oreste, Napolitano, 2020. "Assessment of regional productive performance of European health systems under a metatechnology framework," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 234-248.
    4. Bruce Hollingsworth & John Wildman, 2003. "The efficiency of health production: re‐estimating the WHO panel data using parametric and non‐parametric approaches to provide additional information," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(6), pages 493-504, June.
    5. Asandului, Laura & Roman, Monica & Fatulescu, Puiu, 2013. "The Efficiency of Healthcare Systems in Europe: a Data Envelopment Analysis Approach," MPRA Paper 58954, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Apr 2014.
    6. William Greene, 2004. "Distinguishing between heterogeneity and inefficiency: stochastic frontier analysis of the World Health Organization's panel data on national health care systems," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(10), pages 959-980, October.
    7. Richard Gearhart, 2016. "No theory: an explanation of the lack of consistency in cross-country health care comparisons using non-parametric estimators," Health Economics Review, Springer, vol. 6(1), pages 1-12, December.
    8. Gian Paolo Barbetta & Gilberto Turati & Angelo M. Zago, 2007. "Behavioral differences between public and private not‐for‐profit hospitals in the Italian national health service," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(1), pages 75-96, January.
    9. Vinish Kathuria & Deepa Sankar, 2005. "Inter-State Disparities in Health Outcomes in Rural India: An Analysis Using a Stochastic Production Frontier Approach," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 23(2), pages 145-163, March.
    10. Wranik, Dominika, 2012. "Healthcare policy tools as determinants of health-system efficiency: evidence from the OECD," Health Economics, Policy and Law, Cambridge University Press, vol. 7(2), pages 197-226, April.
    11. Diewert, W E, 1974. "Functional Forms for Revenue and Factor Requirements Functions," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 15(1), pages 119-130, February.
    12. Nan Jiang & Antony Andrews, 2020. "Efficiency of New Zealand’s District Health Boards at Providing Hospital Services: A stochastic frontier analysis," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 53(1), pages 53-68, February.
    13. Raffaele Lagravinese & Paolo Liberati & Giuliano Resce, 2017. "Exploring health outcomes by stochastic multi-objective acceptability analysis: an application to Italian regions," Working Papers. Collection B: Regional and sectoral economics 1703, Universidade de Vigo, GEN - Governance and Economics research Network.
    14. Yohannes Kinfu, 2013. "The efficiency of the health system in South Africa: evidence from stochastic frontier analysis," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(8), pages 1003-1010, March.
    15. Jaume Puig‐Junoy & Vicente Ortún, 2004. "Cost efficiency in primary care contracting: a stochastic frontier cost function approach," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(12), pages 1149-1165, December.
    16. Chowdhury, Hedayet & Zelenyuk, Valentin, 2016. "Performance of hospital services in Ontario: DEA with truncated regression approach," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 111-122.
    17. N. Maniadakis & N. Kotsopoulos & P. Prezerakos & J. Yfantopoulos, 2009. "Health Care Services Performance Measurement: Theory, Methods and Empirical Evidence," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(3), pages 151-170.
    18. Kankana Mukherjee & Rexford Santerre & Ning Jackie Zhang, 2010. "Explaining the efficiency of local health departments in the U.S.: an exploratory analysis," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 13(4), pages 378-387, December.
    19. Andrew Street, 2003. "How much confidence should we place in efficiency estimates?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(11), pages 895-907, November.
    20. Hung-jen Wang & Peter Schmidt, 2002. "One-Step and Two-Step Estimation of the Effects of Exogenous Variables on Technical Efficiency Levels," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 129-144, September.
    21. Stefan Felder & Harald Tauchmann, 2013. "Federal state differentials in the efficiency of health production in Germany: an artifact of spatial dependence?," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 14(1), pages 21-39, February.
    22. Simar, Leopold & Wilson, Paul W., 2007. "Estimation and inference in two-stage, semi-parametric models of production processes," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 136(1), pages 31-64, January.
    23. Signorelli, C. & Odone, A. & Oradini-Alacreu, A. & Pelissero, G., 2020. "Universal Health Coverage in Italy: lights and shades of the Italian National Health Service which celebrated its 40th anniversary," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 124(1), pages 69-74.
    24. Timothy J. Coelli & D.S. Prasada Rao & Christopher J. O’Donnell & George E. Battese, 2005. "An Introduction to Efficiency and Productivity Analysis," Springer Books, Springer, edition 0, number 978-0-387-25895-9, December.
    25. Del Vecchio, Mario & Fenech, Lorenzo & Prenestini, Anna, 2015. "Private health care expenditure and quality in Beveridge systems: Cross-regional differences in the Italian NHS," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 119(3), pages 356-366.
    26. Brijesh C Purohit, 2016. "Health Care System Efficiency: A Sub-State Level Analysis For Orissa (India)," Review of Urban & Regional Development Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(1), pages 55-74, March.
    27. Retzlaff-Roberts, Donna & Chang, Cyril F. & Rubin, Rose M., 2004. "Technical efficiency in the use of health care resources: a comparison of OECD countries," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 55-72, July.
    28. Massimiliano Piacenza & Gilberto Turati, 2014. "Does Fiscal Discipline Towards Subnational Governments Affect Citizens' Well‐Being? Evidence On Health," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(2), pages 199-224, February.
    29. Greta Falavigna & Roberto Ippoliti, 2013. "L?efficienza dei sistemi sanitari regionali in Italia: pubblico o privato?," ECONOMIA E POLITICA INDUSTRIALE, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2013(2), pages 29-49.
    30. Silvio Daidone & Francesco D’Amico, 2009. "Technical efficiency, specialization and ownership form: evidences from a pooling of Italian hospitals," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 32(3), pages 203-216, December.
    31. João Medeiros & Christoph Schwierz, 2015. "Efficiency estimates of health care systems," European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 549, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    32. Isabelle Joumard & Christophe André & Chantal Nicq, 2010. "Health Care Systems: Efficiency and Institutions," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 769, OECD Publishing.
    33. Allin, Sara & Grignon, Michel & Wang, Li, 2016. "The determinants of efficiency in the Canadian health care system," Health Economics, Policy and Law, Cambridge University Press, vol. 11(1), pages 39-65, January.
    34. Roberto Colombi & Gianmaria Martini & Giorgio Vittadini, 2017. "Determinants of transient and persistent hospital efficiency: The case of Italy," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(S2), pages 5-22, September.
    35. Cinzia Di Novi & Dino Rizzi & Michele Zanette, 2018. "Scale Effects and Expected Savings from Consolidation Policies of Italian Local Healthcare Authorities," Applied Health Economics and Health Policy, Springer, vol. 16(1), pages 107-122, February.
    36. Camilla Mastromarco & Lenka Stastna & Jana Votapkova, 2019. "Efficiency of hospitals in the Czech Republic: Conditional efficiency approach," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 51(1), pages 73-89, February.
    37. Kodde, David A & Palm, Franz C, 1986. "Wald Criteria for Jointly Testing Equality and Inequality Restriction s," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(5), pages 1243-1248, September.
    38. Chiara Canta & Massimiliano Piacenza & Turati Gilberto, 2005. "Riforme del Servizio Sanitario Nazionale e dinamica dell’efficienza ospedaliera in Piemonte," CERIS Working Paper 200515, CNR-IRCrES Research Institute on Sustainable Economic Growth - Torino (TO) ITALY - former Institute for Economic Research on Firms and Growth - Moncalieri (TO) ITALY.
    39. Battese, G E & Coelli, T J, 1995. "A Model for Technical Inefficiency Effects in a Stochastic Frontier Production Function for Panel Data," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 325-332.
    40. Prachitha J. & K.R. Shanmugam, 2012. "Efficiency of Raising Health Outcomes in the Indian States," Working Papers 2012-070, Madras School of Economics,Chennai,India.
    41. Häkkinen, Unto & Iversen, Tor & Peltola, Mikko & Seppälä, Timo T. & Malmivaara, Antti & Belicza, Éva & Fattore, Giovanni & Numerato, Dino & Heijink, Richard & Medin, Emma & Rehnberg, Clas, 2013. "Health care performance comparison using a disease-based approach: The EuroHOPE project," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 112(1), pages 100-109.
    42. Bruce Hollingsworth, 2008. "The measurement of efficiency and productivity of health care delivery," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 17(10), pages 1107-1128, October.
    43. OGLOBLIN, Constantin, 2011. "Health Care Efficiency Across Countries: A Stochastic Frontier Analysis," Applied Econometrics and International Development, Euro-American Association of Economic Development, vol. 11(1).
    44. repec:wly:hlthec:v:26:y:2017:i::p:5-22 is not listed on IDEAS
    45. Daxin Sun & Haksoon Ahn & Tomas Lievens & Wu Zeng, 2017. "Evaluation of the performance of national health systems in 2004-2011: An analysis of 173 countries," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(3), pages 1-13, March.
    46. Richard Heijink & Xander Koolman & Gert Westert, 2013. "Spending more money, saving more lives? The relationship between avoidable mortality and healthcare spending in 14 countries," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 14(3), pages 527-538, June.
    47. Fabio Pammolli & Francesco Porcelli & Francesco Vidoli & Guido Borà, 2015. "La spesa sanitaria delle Regioni in Italia - Saniregio 2015," Working Papers CERM 01-2015, Competitività, Regole, Mercati (CERM), revised 04 Jan 2016.
    48. Gearhart, Richard S. & Michieka, Nyakundi M., 2018. "A comparison of the robust conditional order-m estimation and two stage DEA in measuring healthcare efficiency among California counties," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 395-406.
    49. Subal Kumbhakar, 2010. "Efficiency and productivity of world health systems: where does your country stand?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(13), pages 1641-1659.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Varabyova, Yauheniya & Müller, Julia-Maria, 2016. "The efficiency of health care production in OECD countries: A systematic review and meta-analysis of cross-country comparisons," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 120(3), pages 252-263.
    2. Ozbugday, Fatih Cemil & Tirgil, Abdullah & Kose, Elif Gul, 2020. "Efficiency changes in long-term care in OECD countries: A non-parametric Malmquist Index approach," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    3. Constantin Ogloblin, 2023. "Health care financing and productivity of health care in OECD countries: a stochastic frontier analysis," Eurasian Economic Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 13(2), pages 259-283, June.
    4. Valentin Zelenyuk & Zhichao Wang, 2023. "Random vs. Explained Inefficiency in Stochastic Frontier Analysis: The Case of Queensland Hospitals," CEPA Working Papers Series WP052023, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    5. Puertas, Rosa & Marti, Luisa & Guaita-Martinez, José M., 2020. "Innovation, lifestyle, policy and socioeconomic factors: An analysis of European quality of life," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    6. Angelo Castaldo & Maria Alessandra Antonelli & Valeria De Bonis & Giorgia Marini, 2020. "Determinants of health sector efficiency: evidence from a two-step analysis on 30 OECD countries," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 40(2), pages 1651-1666.
    7. Cristian Barra & Raffaele Lagravinese & Roberto Zotti, 2022. "Exploring hospital efficiency within and between Italian regions: new empirical evidence," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 57(3), pages 269-284, June.
    8. Boffardi, Raffaele, 2022. "How efficient is the Italian health system? Evidence on the role of political-institutional dynamics," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    9. Mustapha D. Ibrahim & Sahand Daneshvar & Mevhibe B. Hocaoğlu & Olasehinde-Williams G. Oluseye, 2019. "An Estimation of the Efficiency and Productivity of Healthcare Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa: Health-Centred Millennium Development Goal-Based Evidence," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 143(1), pages 371-389, May.
    10. Gearhart Richard, 2019. "The Impact of Secondary Environmental Variables on OECD Healthcare Efficiency: A Robust Conditional Approach," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 19(2), pages 1-16, April.
    11. Varabyova, Yauheniya & Schreyögg, Jonas, 2013. "International comparisons of the technical efficiency of the hospital sector: Panel data analysis of OECD countries using parametric and non-parametric approaches," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 112(1), pages 70-79.
    12. William Griffiths & Xiaohui Zhang & Xueyan Zhao, 2010. "A Stochastic Frontier Model for Discrete Ordinal Outcomes: A Health Production Function," Monash Econometrics and Business Statistics Working Papers 3/10, Monash University, Department of Econometrics and Business Statistics.
    13. Massimiliano Piacenza & Gilberto Turati, 2014. "Does Fiscal Discipline Towards Subnational Governments Affect Citizens' Well‐Being? Evidence On Health," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(2), pages 199-224, February.
    14. Katharina Schley, 2018. "Health care service provision in Europe and regional diversity: a stochastic metafrontier approach," Health Economics Review, Springer, vol. 8(1), pages 1-11, December.
    15. Herwartz, Helmut & Schley, Katharina, 2018. "Improving health care service provision by adapting to regional diversity: An efficiency analysis for the case of Germany," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 122(3), pages 293-300.
    16. Rahab Mbau & Anita Musiega & Lizah Nyawira & Benjamin Tsofa & Andrew Mulwa & Sassy Molyneux & Isabel Maina & Julie Jemutai & Charles Normand & Kara Hanson & Edwine Barasa, 2023. "Analysing the Efficiency of Health Systems: A Systematic Review of the Literature," Applied Health Economics and Health Policy, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 205-224, March.
    17. Cavalieri, Marina & Di Caro, Paolo & Guccio, Calogero & Lisi, Domenico, 2020. "Does neighbours' grass matter? Testing spatial dependent heterogeneity in technical efficiency of Italian hospitals," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 265(C).
    18. Diogo Cunha Ferreira & Alexandre Morais Nunes & Rui Cunha Marques, 2020. "Operational efficiency vs clinical safety, care appropriateness, timeliness, and access to health care," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 53(3), pages 355-375, June.
    19. Subal C. Kumbhakar & Christopher F. Parmeter & Valentin Zelenyuk, 2022. "Stochastic Frontier Analysis: Foundations and Advances I," Springer Books, in: Subhash C. Ray & Robert G. Chambers & Subal C. Kumbhakar (ed.), Handbook of Production Economics, chapter 8, pages 331-370, Springer.
    20. Carolina Crispin-Fory & Ligia Alba Melo-Becerra & Diego Alexander Restrepo-Tobón & Diego Vásquez-Escobar, 2023. "Eficiencia y solidez financiera de las Instituciones prestadoras de Servicio de Salud (IPS) en Colombia," Borradores de Economia 1248, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    healthcare expenditure; regional healthcare systems; efficiency; LEA scores;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H51 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Health
    • H75 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Government: Health, Education, and Welfare
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • R50 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Regional Government Analysis - - - General

    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:mul:je8794:doi:10.1429/102931:y:2021:i:2:p:187-214. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.rivisteweb.it/ .

    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.