Technical Effeciency Of Hospitals: Acase Of Public, Mission And Private Hospitals In North Rift Region, Kenya

Abstract

The demands for health care resource have been increasing overtime in Kenya. Quantitative methods of measuring the efficiency of management and resources use are increasingly being applied in the health care sector. This study focuses on the measurement of technical efficiency of public, mission and private hospitals in North Rift Region of Kenya. The specific objectives of the study were to compare levels of technical efficiency among selected hospitals in North Rift Region and to identify the major determinants of variations in technical efficiency in the hospitals. Although the number was 43, a purposive sampling technique was used to pick all the 28 hospitals with admission facilities. This represented 65.12 % of the target population. Document analysis was used as the instrument of data collection. Comparative analysis, descriptive statistics and DEAP version 2.1 computer program was applied in analyzing data. The study used data envelopment Analyses methodology to identify and measure individual public and private hospital efficiencies. This involves the standard Constant Return to Scale and Variable Return to Scale models that involve the calculation of Technical and Scale efficiencies. The key results were as follow: The overall average level of TE among hospitals in the North Rift is 83.7%. Under pure technical efficiency, 10 of the 28 hospitals (35.71%) are relatively inefficient compared with the other hospitals in the data set. On the scale efficiency side 15 of the 28 hospitals (53.57%) were scale inefficient. In total the following inputs are wasted and not utilized in the production of outputs among hospitals in the North Rift Region, 16.978 doctors (12.04%), 211.377 nurses (13.58%), 35.943 technicians (15.97%), 14.092 administrative staff (12.25%), 153.748 general staff (16.44%), and 279.68 beds (13.41%).Under pure technical efficiency scores the mission hospitals are the best performers with average score of 1.000, While under scale technical efficiency scores the public hospital have highest average scores of 0.9292 The study gained empirical knowledge about efficiency of public, mission and private hospitals. This knowledge about differences in efficiency will contribute to the public policy debate on how to improve the efficiency with which the government spend their scarce resources for the provision of health care to the population as has been noted by the Health Reform Strategy in Kenya. The findings of the study are intended to benefit health financing, hospital management, academic, policy makers, in government and general public. The study recommends that excess labour force and beds be relocated to the under staffed primary healthcare facilities.