Objective · To explore the operational efficiency and the variation trend of 16 municipal-level public hospitals in Chongqing after the new health care reform and to provide quantitative evidence for overall advance of urban public hospital reform in 2017. Methods · Data of main business indicators from 16 public hospitals (2009-2015) were collected. The mean and sample values of overall efficiency, pure technical efficiency, and scale efficiency were calculated with a BC2 model of the data envelopment analysis (DEA) and the input redundancy and output deficit were analyzed. The mean and sample values of productivity and cost effectiveness were calculated using the Cobb-Douglas production model of the stochastic frontier approach (SFA). The values were verified with the maximum likelihood method. The effects of productivity and cost effectiveness on total output and total cost were determined according to coefficients. Results · DEA analysis showed that average overall efficiency, pure technical efficiency, and scale efficiency were efficient in 16 public hospitals (0.852-0.991), but the optimal value (1.000) for above 3 indicators was only obtained in 3 public hospitals. There were irregular differences in the above 3
indicators, as well as input redundancy and output deficit. SFA analysis showed that the average cost-effectiveness was efficient in 16 public hospitals (0.8891.000), while the average productivity was moderate to efficient (0.665-0.782) with large differences among the hospitals. Some indicators negatively influenced the productivity, including the number of outpatients and emergency patients, actual available bed days, and fixed assets medical income per
hundred yuan. Conclusion · The government should pay more attention to efficiency estimation and variation trend, reasonably solve problems in allocating limited medical resources, and enhance the effect of efficiency in quantitative input when evaluating the public hospitals.