The Malmquist Production Index in determining and improving healthcare productivity in Turkey

Abstract

It is a fact that countries with robust and inclusive health services have a longer life expectancy at birth. Health services aim to improve and maintain health. In order to achieve these objectives, an integrated combination of various activities in which the production of more than one type of output and the consumption of more than one type of resource is aimed is evaluated. In the study, to examine the efficiency of healthcare in Turkey between the years 2010-2014, which is a nonparametric Malmquist DEA method is used. We have used three output variables: life expectancy at birth, health adjusted life expectancy and infant mortality rate and three input variables: number of doctors, number of hospital beds and public health expenditures as percentage of GDP. Findings reveal that there are a number of both developed and developing cities on the efficiency frontier, while the great majority of the cities in the sample are inefficient.