State of the Art : Efficiency Measurement in Health and Health Care

After reviewing over 300 published papers on frontier efficiency measurement, the techniques used are mainly non-parametric data envelopment analysis based, but there is increasing use of parametric techniques, such as stochastic frontier analysis. Applications both to hospitals and wider health care areas are reviewed and summarised, and some meta-type analysis undertaken. This seemingly confirms earlier findings concerning public provision being more efficient than private. The paper considers earlier conceptualizations of efficiency, where there appears much confusion, and points to policy implications of trends of generating such information