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Accounting for quality in the measurement of hospital performance: evidence from Costa Rica
Author(s) -
Arocena Pablo,
GarcíaPrado Ariadna
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
health economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.55
H-Index - 109
eISSN - 1099-1050
pISSN - 1057-9230
DOI - 10.1002/hec.1204
Subject(s) - productivity , quality (philosophy) , construct (python library) , index (typography) , scale (ratio) , technical change , economics , quality management , growth accounting , technological change , function (biology) , public hospital , operations management , accounting , total factor productivity , econometrics , public economics , medicine , computer science , economic growth , geography , macroeconomics , nursing , management system , philosophy , cartography , epistemology , evolutionary biology , biology , world wide web , programming language
Abstract This paper provides insights into how Costa Rican public hospitals responded to the pressure for increased efficiency and quality introduced by the reforms carried out over the period 1997–2001. To that purpose we compute a generalized output distance function by means of non‐parametric mathematical programming to construct a productivity index, which accounts for productivity changes while controlling for quality of care. Our results show an improvement in hospital performance mainly driven by quality increases. The adoption of management contracts seems to have contributed to such enhancement, more notably for small hospitals. Further, productivity growth is primarily due to technical and scale efficiency change rather than technological change. A number of policy implications are drawn from these results. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.