Assessing the Efficiency of Taiwan’s Health Care Systems by Using the Network DEA

Huang, Chin-wei

doi:10.24200/sci.2024.59848.6459

Assessing the Efficiency of Taiwan’s Health Care Systems by Using the Network DEA

Document Type : Article

Author

Chin-wei Huang

Department of Business and Entrepreneurial Management Kainan University No.1, Kainan Rd., Luchu, Taoyuan, Taiwan 33857 R.O.C.

10.24200/sci.2024.59848.6459

Abstract

A high-quality health care system requires substantial financial resources. The question of how to efficiently use the health care system’s financial and medical resources has attracted the attention of researchers. The purpose of this study is to develop a network data envelopment analysis (DEA). Previous studies used the radial measure to assess efficiency in the network DEA model, but the radial measure might not satisfy the principles of unit invariance, translation invariance, and monotonicity. The developed model applied the non-radial measure to evaluate performance and suggested several modifications to the assessment of health care system efficiency. First, we redefine the relationships among financial resources, medical resources, medical care outcomes, and national health as a value-added process. Second, we assume disease prevention to be an individual division in the health care system. Third, we build an optimal degree measure for medical resources to investigate resource wastage and shortages. Fourth, we internalize variable transformation and external factors into a single DEA model. The empirical evaluation applies sample data from 21 regions to examine the proposed model, which results in several practical implications for Taiwan’s health care system.

Keywords