Efficiency Performance of Hospitals and Medical Centers in Vietnam

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the efficiency performance of the hospitals and medical centers in Vietnam by using a non-parametric approach, namely the data envelopment analysis (DEA) model. The data from the Economic Census for Enterprises by the General Statistics Office of Vietnam (GSO) consists of 44 observations, which include 17 hospitals and 27 medical centers in different provinces and cities in 2002. The results indicate that the average scale efficiency of the hospitals was 77.4 percent, while that of the medical centers was 58.7 percent. Further, hospitals were clearly more efficient than medical centers due to some possible factors. Locations in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh city had no influence on either overall technical efficiency or scale efficiency. Despite differences in the results of testing the impact of net capital-labor ratio on efficiency for hospitals and medical centers, these organizations appear to operate in labor-intensive ways.