Avaliação da Eficiência Técnica e da Eficiência de Escala do Sistema Nacional de Transplantes

The Brazilian National Transplantation System (SNT) faces great challenges since the mean waiting times are very long, the shortage of organs is acute and a growing backlog of patients has been observed. We use data envelopment analysis (DEA) to realize an exploratory evaluation of the efficiency related to various organ transplantation procedures in Brazil. The inputs are the transplant expenses. The quantities of the various organs transplanted are employed as output measures. Our interest focuses on changes in efficiency over time, and the identification of trends in performance. Consequently, this study provides comparisons over multiple years (1995-2003). Although the overall performance deteriorated, we find out that SNT seemingly improved its performance in the last three years under analysis (2001- 2003). Apparently, SNT improved its efficiency regarding liver transplantation activities along the entire period. That conclusion, however, does not apply to kidneys, where an upward trend is not obvious. Because no previous work exists that used DEA in SNT efficiency evaluation, we believe that our work may be useful to policymakers as well as to the transplant community.