Evaluating relative efficiencies of Veterans Affairs medical centers using data envelopment, ratio, and multiple regression analysis

Several forms of analysis are used to evaluate the efficiency of acute care Veterans Affairs hospitals. The smaller hospitals with fewer than 100 beds and hospitals not in operation a full year have been excluded. The types of analysis used are input ratio analysis and productivity analysis of three outputs consisting of surgeries, discharges and emergency and outpatient visits. Also used is data envelopment analysis (DEA) of two subsamples segmented by whether the hospital is a member or not of the Council of Teaching Hospitals. Finally, multiple regression is used to find indicators of the relative efficiencies generated by the DEA. Results show that about one half of all hospitals are relatively inefficient. Also promising indicators of efficiency are hospital size, inpatient surgeries, outpatient surgeries, and the aggregate emergency room and outpatient visits.