earticle

영어

This study aims to perform data envelopment analysis(DEA) and the Malmquist productivity index(MPI) analysis to compare and assess efficiency by hospitals, courses, and clinical departments of five large upper-scale general hospitals in Seoul in terms of outpatients, inpatients, and comprehensive conditions. For this purpose, this study divided the data of 2009 and 2010 for five large upper-scale general hospitals in Seoul into internal and surgery departments and subdivided 60 of their clinical departments into decision-making units(DMUs) for efficiency analysis. This study obtained several important results: First, while there was no significant difference in efficiency among five large upper-scale general hospitals in Seoul, making the comparative analysis less meaningful, it was possible to know which area produced inefficiency by analyzing the changes in efficiency in terms of areas for inpatients and outpatients. Second, the efficiency analysis was carried out in terms of internal and surgery departments; as a result, the former affected efficiency for outpatients’ affairs and the latter affected hospitalization efficiency, which caused surgery to make higher general efficiency than internal department. Third, while the gap between hospitals was not significant in terms of efficiency, there was a large gap between clinical departments in terms of efficiency, indicating specifically which clinical department induced the cause of inefficiency and what to improve to which extent. The results of this study provide an important managerial implication. An analysis on the efficiency of hospitals as decision-making units(DMUs) can be used to compare the levels of efficiency among medical institutions. In order to decide on the direction of specific investment internally or implement a management innovation policy with the objective of improving efficiency, it is necessary to show specific causes and improvements by analyzing efficiency in terms of clinical department units.