Performance Evaluation for Taiwanese Hospitals by Multi-Activity Network Data Envelopment Analysis

This study proposes an alternative method for evaluating the overall performance of hospitals in Taiwan. Specifically, three types of hospital activities, medical, pharmaceutical, and rehabilitation, are classified and connected using the parallel method. To bridge the difference between the performance evaluation methods adopted in hospitals and the evaluation method adopted by traditional enterprises, each activity is divided into two serial-type connected processes, which are the production and service processes. This study analyzes the performance of the six processes in three types of activities of three levels of hospitals, namely medical centers, regional hospitals, and district hospitals, by using multi-activity network data envelopment analysis (MNDEA) in Taiwan in 2012. The average overall efficiency was 0.41, while the average estimated efficiency for medical, pharmaceutical, and rehabilitation activities was 0.62, 0.34, and 0.27, respectively. At the hospital level, the average efficiency for medical centers, regional hospitals, and district hospitals was 0.59, 0.49, and 0.35, respectively. The production processes of medical and rehabilitation activities in Taiwan have higher average efficiency than their service processes, while the production processes of pharmaceutical activity have lower average efficiency than its service processes. These results provide a reference for upgrading the operation and management strategies for all hospitals in the country.