The Medical Care Network Plan was implemented by the DOH since July 1985. Taiwan area was divided into 17 medical regions. The objective of this plan was to shrink the gap of medical resources between medical regions in order to avoid the resources being repeatedly invested and wasted. Now, the unequally distributed medical resources have been improved. What is more, checking the efficiency of the use of medical resources has become an important task. Therefore, the purpose for this study is to evaluate the efficiency of the use of medical resources in Taiwan area's 17 medical regions. The results of this study can provide the government for reference in making decision of the medical resources policy.
This study analyses a secondary data of the medical care network in 2003 to evaluate the efficiency of Taiwan area's 17 medical regions by Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). Further, it uses the inferential statistics to identify the relationships about the efficiency and geographical locations, medical resource indicators, the ratio of public hospitals, and medical quality indicators.
The results of this study are as follows:
1. Keelung, Ilan, Hsinchu, Miaoli, Changhua, and Pingtung medical regions were relatively efficient in the overall efficiency. In the overall efficiency, Taipei, Taichung, Yunlin, Chiayi, and Kaohsiung medical regions were inefficient because of the scale inefficiency.
2. There was significant difference in overall efficiency in the 4 geographical regions (north, central, south and east regions) which the 17 medical regions belong to. Furthermore, the north region was more efficient than south and east region.
3. The relatively inefficient medical regions invested more inputs of medical resources, but they produced fewer outputs. The relatively efficient medical regions provided higher medical quality and productivity.
4. The medical region which had higher overall efficiency score showed the better medical quality, and lower ratio of public hospitals. On the contrary, the ratio of public hospitals was higher, the medical quality was lower.
5. The ways to improve the input variables of those inefficient medical regions were as follow: Taipei, Taichung, Yunlin, Tainan, Kaohsiung, Pingtung,Taitung, and Hualian medical regions needed to reduce the input variable in ¡§the ratio of physician to population¡¨. Taoyuan, Nantou, and Chiayi medical regions needed to reduce the input variable in ¡§medical benefit payments¡¨.
According to the results of this study, it is highly suggested that the government should probe the distribution and utilization of medical resources of the inefficient medical regions in order to know the reasons why these regions were inefficient. That can provide the government for reference in making decision of the policy. We wish the utilization of medical resources in each medical region would be more economical and more efficient.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0829105-161222 |
| Date | 29 August 2005 |
| Creators | Liu, Shu-Ling |
| Contributors | Huei-Mei Liang, Kim-Jean Chow, Hsueh-Wen Chang |
| Publisher | NSYSU |
| Source Sets | NSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive |
| Language | Cholon |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0829105-161222 |
| Rights | off_campus_withheld, Copyright information available at source archive |
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