Benchmarking the efficiency of healthcare systems among the OECD countries between the years 2000 and 2015 using Data Envelopment Analysis with a focus on Belgium
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- The objective of this study is to benchmark the healthcare systems of the OECD member countries between the years 2000-2015 using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). Two output-oriented models have been constructed under the assumption of variable returns to scale, each representing a subpart of healthcare systems. First, a “Medical Care” model has as inputs the number of doctors, hospital beds and the health expenditure per capita. Second, a “Lifestyle” model consists of the following inputs: the consumptions of tobacco and alcohol, the supply of fruits and vegetables and the health expenditure per capita. Both models share the same outputs, including the life expectancy at birth, the infant survival rate and the perceived health status. Results present the technical efficiencies, rankings for Belgium, and the Malmquist index. Australia, Canada, Chile, Spain, Iceland, South Korea, Mexico and New Zealand are consistently efficient in both models. Belgium is not efficient relatively to the other OECD members. Besides, rich countries do not appear to be necessarily more efficient.