OBJECTIVES: Under global budget and prospective payment system, hospitals in Taiwan were competitive. Efficiency has become a key concern for hospital managers, who are under pressure to provide more services at a lower cost. In this study, we examined the efficiency of all the medical centers in Taiwan from 2015-2018.

METHODS: This study adopts the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to estimate the efficiency of 19 medical centers from 2015 to 2018. Four input variables (Total hospital beds、number of physicians、Gross Equipment、self-pay structure) and four output variables (medical surplus and deficit、EBITDA、the total RVUs for outpatient services、the total RVUs for inpatient services) were adopted into the DEA model. We also use the Tobit regression to identify important factors that affect the efficiency of medical centers. Finally, the MPI is used to discuss the productivity trends of each unit over the year.

RESULTS: In terms of technical efficiency (TE) under the CCR model, five medical centers have an efficiency score of 1 in all four years. Both CCR model and pure technical efficiency (PTE) of BCC models showed increasing trends of average efficiency scores which were 0.9499-0.9846 and 0.9902 to 0.9967 respectively. In terms of ownership, nonprofit hospitals have the highest efficiency scores and public hospitals have the lowest efficiency scores. Tobit regression showed that total of inpatient days, the point value, asset turnover and bed occupancy rate are significant impact factors.

CONCLUSIONS: The results of DEA analysis provide evidences for the manager to improve their performances. Most hospitals had a higher technical efficiency than the scale efficiency rates in Taiwan.