Operations assessment of hospitals in the Sultanate of Oman

Purpose – The importance of health care is growing world‐wide, and the health sector is receiving a good proportion of public funds. As health‐care costs are increasing, efforts have been made to assess the operational efficiency of hospitals in many countries. Design/methodology/approach – In this paper, the efficiencies of operation of 20 hospitals in the Sultanate of Oman are evaluated using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). The hospitals selected are Regional and Wilayat hospitals under the Ministry of Health, the Sultan Qaboos University Hospital and the hospital of the Royal Oman Police. Four outputs representing out‐patient visits, in‐patient services and surgical operations, and three inputs representing the number of beds and manpower are used in the analysis. Findings – Using data for the year 2000, ten of the 20 hospitals are found to be efficient. A ranking of performance of efficient hospitals has been provided by computing their super‐efficiency scores. The patterns of efficiency changes over the time period 1999‐2000 are studied using the Malmquist Productivity Index (MPI) approach. It has been found that there is a decline in the efficiencies of hospitals during the period. The (geometric) average MPI of the hospitals during the period has declined, and the average technical efficiency change declined less compared with the average technology change. Originality/value – This paper is one of the few published studies that evaluates the performance of hospitals in countries of the Middle East.