Slack based measure of efficiencies of public sector hospitals in Uttarakhand (India)

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to determine the relative efficiencies of public sector hospitals in Uttarakhand, India. Design/methodology/approach - The study use data of public hospitals collected from Directorate of Medical Health and Family Welfare, Government of Uttarakhand, Dehradun, India for the year 2011. The cross-sectional data analyses are carried out by applying data envelopment analysis (DEA) based slack based model. Findings - The analysis found that out of total 36 hospitals only ten hospitals are relatively overall technical efficient. The average overall technical efficiency 54.10 per cent indicates that an average hospital has the scope of producing the outputs with the inputs 45.90 per cent lesser than their existing levels. The slack analysis results show that on average 12.57 per cent of beds, 13.16 per cent of doctors, 14.04 per cent of paramedical staff can be reduced and 17.53 per cent of out-door patients, 66.55 per cent of in-door patients, 208.23 per cent of major surgeries, 110.73 per cent of minor surgeries can be expanded if all the inefficient hospitals operate at the level of efficient hospitals. Originality/value - The present study is undertaken to measure the relative efficiencies of public sector hospitals in Uttarakhand. There is dearth of studies being done on Indian healthcare sector and this study will help to utilize healthcare resources efficiently for formulating policy implications for public hospitals in Uttarakhand. For the robustness of DEA results, Jackknifing analysis is also conducted.