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Received: February, 2017
1st Revision: April, 2017
Accepted: August, 2017
DOI: 10.14254/2071-789X.2017/10-3/8
JEL Classification: C14, H51, I18, M40
ABSTRACT. This paper illustrates a benchmarking study concerning the healthcare systems in 32 European countries as of 2011 and 2014. Particularly, this study proposes a two-dimensional approach (efficiency/effectiveness models) to evaluate the performance of national healthcare systems. Data Envelopment Analysis has been adopted to compute two performance indices, measuring efficiency and effectiveness of these healthcare systems. The results of the study emphasize that the national healthcare systems achieve different efficiency and effectiveness levels. Their performance indices are uncorrelated and behave differently over time, suggesting that there might be no real trade-off between them. The healthcare systems' efficiencies remain generally stable, while the effectiveness values significantly improved from 2011 to 2014. However, comparing the efficiency and effectiveness scores, the authors identified a group of countries with the lowest performing healthcare systems that includes Ukraine, Bulgaria, Switzerland, Lithuania, and Romania. These countries need to implement healthcare reforms aimed at reducing resource intensity and increasing the quality of medical services. The results also showed the benefits of the proposed approach, which can help policy makers to identify shortcomings in national healthcare systems and justify the need for their reform.
Keywords, efficiency; effectiveness; DEA; healthcare systems; Europe
(ProQuest: ... denotes formulae omitted.)
Introduction
European healthcare systems are facing several challenges since the early 2000s as a consequence of a number of factors (Papanicolas and Smith, 2013): a) increasing costs of healthcare services; b) ageing of population associated to the rise of chronic diseases and thus - the growing demand for healthcare; c) unequal access to healthcare services; d) uneven distribution of healthcare professionals and infrastructure across regions. Moreover, the economic turnaround and budget restrictions in the public sector occurring in the last decade in many European countries have limited the amount of financial resources available to healthcare, thus jeopardizing the sustainability of national healthcare systems, quality of healthcare services and universal access to such services. Henceforth, the need to deliver value-added healthcare services focusing on resource and cost efficiency, increasing healthcare quality at the same time, has become an important goal on the changing landscape of healthcare management in Europe. Indeed, healthcare consumes a large amount of national budgets, but...