Resource Type: Publication
Authors:  Claire Jones and Tesfaye Ashagari
Published: August 2018

Resource Description: The study collected cost and output data for the financial year 2014/15 from all of the 29 district hospitals and 5 referral hospitals. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) was used to calculate hospital efficiency scores and benchmark the hospitals relative to the group’s observed best practice. The DEA was performed using an “input orientation,” since the district and referral hospitals in Namibia have limited control over the outputs they produce. The analyses therefore show how savings can be achieved by using the inputs more efficiently (i.e., fewer inputs) to generate the same outputs. In order to assess the scale efficiency of the hospitals, an assumption of the variable return to scale was used in the analyses since the district and referral hospitals included in the study are not considered to be operating at an optimum scale. Interviews were conducted with key staff of selected hospitals to complement the quantitative data collected.