Protocol for Investigating the Technical Efficiency of District Hospitals in the Public Health Sector of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Background The central objective of policy makers and health managers is efficiency in the delivery of health care. With frequent reports of global economic crises, there is a need to continuously measure the performance of various sectors of the health care system. This can inform the decision-making process toward allocating scarce resources with the aim of maximizing output. Objective The aim of this study is to determine the technical efficiency (TE) of public sector district hospitals in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa to provide information that will assist in policy formulation that may further assist in more efficient resource allocation decisions. Methods This is a health system research based on a quantitative research approach. All 38 public district hospitals in the 11 municipalities of the province will be included in this study. The data for the study will include inputs from hospitals’ operations that contribute toward subsequent outputs. The input data will include information such as the number of health professionals (doctors, nurses, and other personnel) and number of hospital beds, whereas the output data will include information such as outpatient visits and number of admissions or discharge. Other data categories to be included will be determined by data availability and will be uniform for all facilities. Data for each facility for a 3-year period from 2014 to 2017 will be obtained from databases of the district health information, basic accounting, and personnel salary systems. On the basis of the data obtained, a model will be developed that can be used to assess how TE of public districts hospitals may be improved. TE will be determined using Data Envelopment Analysis, and factors influencing efficiency will be computed using StataCorp statistical package. Results As of February 2019, the study is at the data collection, data input, and analysis stages. The results are expected to be available from the second quarter of 2019. Conclusions Findings from this study can add to tools available to policy makers, health planners, and managers in making decisions about resource allocation in health care systems. Moreover, these findings will be disseminated electronically and in print. International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID) DERR1-10.2196/12037