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TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY IN THE USE OF HEALTH CARE RESOURCES: A CROSS-COUNTRY ANALYSIS
Abstract
The aim of the paper is to assess the technical efficiency of twenty health systems from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). We used an output-oriented Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to measure the technical efficiency of the health systems using the latest data available on infant death and life expectancy as health outcomes. Our results show that technical efficiency varies across these health systems and this translates into potential savings of resources. The average efficiency scores for all heath systems were 0.98 for life expectancy at birth and only 0.821 for infant mortality. More than half of the health systems in the sample were technically inefficient in 2009 for both outputs. We found that 30% of national health systems were technically efficient for both outputs.
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