Measuring Technical Efficiency of Schools in Tehran University of Medical Sciences Using Data Envelopment Analysis

Background: Organizational efficiency should be continuously measured to plan for improvement, informing about organizational performance, and guiding the university toward its goals. In this study, the authors measured the efficiency of schools affiliated to Tehran University of Medical Sciences as one of the most important universities in Iran, in 2011 and 2012. Methods: In this research, the efficiency of schools was measured using data envelopment analysis (DEA) technique in three dimensions of education, research, and development. Several indices in each dimension were assumed as input. Data were collected from university documents and analyzed by output oriented approach using DEAP software version 2.1. Results: Findings revealed that the efficiency scores of four schools including public health, pharmacy, nursing and midwifery, and advanced technologies were 100 in both years. In 2011, the efficiency scores for other schools were as follows: medicine 73.1, dentistry 57.6, rehabilitation 82.33, paramedical sciences 80.26, and management and medical information 60.26. These scores were respectively 73.76, 85.26, 71.63, 94.16, and 94.86 in 2012. Conclusion: This research could successfully measure the efficiency of schools. Moreover, it can help decision makers to improve the performance of schools by determining the optimized output.