Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/62949 
Year of Publication: 
2001
Series/Report no.: 
Memorandum No. 2001,24
Publisher: 
University of Oslo, Department of Economics, Oslo
Abstract: 
Efficiency analyses in the health care sector are often criticised for not incorporating quality variables. The definition of quality of primary health care has many aspects, and it is inevitably also a question of the patients’ perception of the services received. This paper uses variables derived from patient evaluation surveys as measures of the quality of the production of health care services. It uses statistical tests to judge if such measures have a significant impact on the use of resources in various Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) models. As the use of survey data implies that the quality variables are measured with error, the assumptions underlying a DEA model are not strictly fulfilled. This paper focuses on ways of correcting for biases that might result from the violation of selected assumptions. Firstly, any selection bias in the patient mix of each physician is controlled for by regressing the patient evaluation responses on the patient characteristics. The corrected quality evaluation variables are entered as outputs in the DEA model, and model specification tests indicate that out of 25 different quality variables, only waiting time has a systematic impact on the efficiency results. Secondly, the effect on the efficiency estimates of the remaining sampling error in the patient sample for each physician is accounted for by constructing confidence intervals based on resampling. Finally, as an alternative approach to including the quality variables in the DEA model, a regression model finds different variables significant, but not always with a trade-of between quality and quantity.
Subjects: 
DEA
Health economics
Quality
Patient evaluation
Efficiency
Errors in variables
Resampling
Bootstrap
Selection bias
Sampling error
JEL: 
C61
D24
I12
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
243.97 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.